Yes, seven days' worth of clothes allows for some weekend events (hanging with friends, unofficial field trips that give extra credit, etc), but usually laundry day is spent at home anyway, so pajamas are frequently worn all day on laundry day. I'm an introvert, so it was rare to not have a full weekend day at home each week. If you're the kind of family to be out all weekend, you might want to keep more clothes in stock and have your child do laundry on weekday afternoons/evenings while studying or doing homework.

Franklin County, OH https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0954611112000753 The person I knew who had sarcoidosis lived in Nebraska and got the disease a couple decades before the tick was present there, so Lyme could not have been a contributing factor for that particular person. It is good that they're starting to unravel the causes of sarcoidosis.

There are places in the US where the frequency is six times higher than the average, and they are not sure why. They suspect a slight genetic component (still too rare to see parent and child with it, but there is a general increase within a local area). I think there is a county in Ohio where it is 48/100,000 people.

Another rare thing it could be is sarcoidosis. Symptoms vary a lot, depending on which organ systems are affects, so look at lists of symptoms specific to the organ systems that are affected. The good news is that if it is sarcoidosis, it usually clears up with treatment. Also, the clean chest xray and EKG have probably ruled out lung and heart involvement, which are the two organs that are associated with worse outcomes for sarcoidosis. While sarcoidosis is relatively rare (about 25,000 cases diagnosed per year in the US), I think it'd be worth asking the next doctor you see about it.

I meant outfits as in 7 tops and 7 bottoms, or 6 tops, 6 bottoms, and a dress. It takes a long time before she wears the same outfit head-to-toe again. Mine refuses to wear jeans, so everything gets washed after one use. We also give fandom t-shirts and sweatshirts at birthday/Christmas, so the total number of possible combinations increases over the year. For what it's worth, the only thing my daughter has noticed about her clothing at school is that the other girls started to copy her style. It's a rural school (you can see cows from the parking lot), and they were pretty much athletic t-shirt/jeans type people beforehand. My daughter wears the fandom shirts, plaid, pineapples, and men's turn of the century clothing, so it was pretty obvious when they started copying her. Your mileage may vary with an urban school.

Mine had 7 outfits, so she could do laundry on the weekend and still have something to wear. A lot of the outfits were t-shirts and comfy pants. If she's interested, buy a dress or nice skirt for dances. We would buy 7 outfits at a time (twice a year, for hot vs cold weather) until she stopped growing. Once they stop growing, we do two new outfits per year, unless something has worn out. Also, be prepared to buy specific clothing mid-year. Choral and band concerts, as well as theater productions, sometimes request black slacks, white blouse, etc. If only the teachers would send those notes home at the beginning of the semester, instead of waiting until mid-December... ETA: my oldest went to public for 8th and 9th grade, until Covid hit. Also, not quite clothing, but sometimes teachers make kids turn in their cell phone during class. If your DD has one, consider getting a unique or customizable phone case so she can quickly identify her's at the end of each period.

I grew up in western Washington (all up and down the western side). Since moving away, the only time people notice an accent is when I pronounce "bag" or "bagel". Apparently the "a" sound I make in those words sounds odd to anyone who grew up elsewhere. To everyone else, it sounds closer to a short e. Washingtonians do tend to speak more quickly. It's not as fast as Gilmore Girls, but definitely more rapid than any other place I've lived. For what it's worth, I have heard that western Washington has the least accent in all of America, and people (radio, tv, etc.) are sent there to lose their accent.

Allergies can sometimes not trigger with a first dose. If it had been a long time since he was previously exposed to a large amount of aloe, his immune system might not have been primed to react. A second dose so soon after the first could cause a big reaction (if aloe was the issue). In about a month, once he's healed, you could try putting aloe on him to see if he has an allergic reaction. That way, if he ever has another sunburn, you'll have ruled it out as a possibility.

Some people can be allergic to aloe. The amount of aloe in soaps, shampoos, hand sanitizers, and sunscreens may not be enough to trigger a major reaction, so people often don't make the connection when they treat a sunburn. Having an allergic reaction on top of a nasty sunburn is awful.

I just finished my menu for next week. Note that for chicken, I use either rotisserie chicken or my husband cooks several pounds of chicken on the barbecue on the weekend to last the week (depending on weather/availability at my grocer). Father's Day: steak, grilled sweet potatoes, wedge salad, berry shortcake Monday: chicken gyro salad wraps Tuesday: crockpot summer chili, corn muffins (baked early in the morning) Wednesday: barbecue chicken salad, bakery rolls Thursday: white gazpacho soup, bread Friday: sandwich with the last of the chicken, cucumber, and tomato (I wish my local grocer carried alfalfa sprouts!), Sunchips Saturday: charcuterie board, leftovers, maybe a fruit salad if I can talk one of the kids into making it (I recently broke my foot, so I can't stand long enough for all that chopping) The summer chili and white gazpacho soup are new recipes for me. With yet another elimination from our diet recently, I need more recipes to rotate in the summer.

Tonight we're having chicken lo mein with kohlrabi and bok choy. Other dishes on the menu this week (I cook lunch and dinner since we're all home together): strawberry wrap with leftover rotisserie chicken cobb salad, double chocolate muffins beef gyros bbq sloppy joes, corn, watermelon homemade spaghettios with meatballs cranberry chicken salad, english muffins with butter and jam burritos, Moe's Homewrecker style spring roll bowl with chicken bbq chicken salad, hawaiian rolls If we ever get a break from the heat, I am craving: chicken and eggplant parmesan, garlic bread, salad chicken enchiladas

Much Ado About Nothing: This is a fantastic springboard for a discussion about rumors. Ender's Game: You can have a discussion about children's intelligence not being respected by most adults, but also the difference between intelligence and wisdom. I don't think kids at this age understand why their thoughts get so frequently dismissed by adults, and adults seldom take the time to explain it to them. For the third book, I might do a Sherlock Holmes, discuss forensics (and how literature influences science), and maybe even watch an episode of a tv show with modern forensics. I might read an Agatha Christie short story as well and have a good discussion about foreshadowing vs red herrings. I think it would be fun to let 8th graders take a stab at writing mysteries and, if time allowed, have peer feedback before and after the story endings are written.

My dyslexic/dysgraphic daughter hated writing, and it was like pulling teeth to get her to write a paragraph. This year, for sixth grade, I used Adventures in Fantasy with her. Even though I wasn't sure if she could handle the writing load, I knew I needed to spark a love of writing. We have two weeks left to our school year now, and she voluntarily writes full pages in her daily journal (even if I don't assign journal time at all), and she is itching to write more novels. FWIW, my older daughter also loved Adventures in Fantasy. Also, I would address the perfectionism separately. My kid was a perfectionist from the beginning. She refused to speak in front of us until she could articulate words, but we could hear her babble on the baby monitor. When we started homeschooling, I found a bunch of picture books on the topic, and we also discussed how in science being wrong is when science gets really exciting. For awhile after that, we pointed out all the times my husband and I made mistakes as they happened. It made a big change in her attitude and she became a lot more willing to seek help when she needed it. Another thing that helped with her writing was to only make 1 or 2 corrections on each assignment (whatever makes it the least intelligible), even if there were a lot more issues. If she's not overloaded with corrections, she's more likely to remember those issues, and the writing gradually improves. Ruth

After finishing our regular grammar curriculum (Exercises In English), this is what I've used to teach comma placement, as that seems to be my kids' Achilles heel (grammar-wise). My oldest had about 50% reduction in missing/incorrect commas after finishing this book, so I'm hoping for similar success with my youngest. https://www.amazon.com/Commas-Teaching-Students-Correctly-Without/dp/1877673382/ref=sr_1_3?dchild=1&keywords=Commas&qid=1617216609&sr=8-3

My husband has the study guide for The Elements of Logic, and I think a middle schooler could understand it, especially if they have a coding background. If you just use the study guide, you'll need to supplement the instruction, but the study guide gives enough information to know what to google for each section. It was designed for college students, so some of the exercises may cover content that you might consider inappropriate for a middle schooler. If nothing else, it gives you a starting point for writing a syllabus, and it has exercises and answers to practice each new idea/skill. Used copies aren't too expensive. I have not used this book with either of my students because neither of them have expressed an interest. At middle school age, my older student (an advanced learner) would have been able to use the study guide on her own, googling whatever she needed to understand each part (maybe with me helping her with search terms on the first lesson). My younger kid (average, with some LD) would still need someone to find the websites for her every lesson. Hopefully you get a more helpful response, from someone who has taught the subject to their students. Ruth

This is my second time planning seventh grade. My youngest has dyslexia and dysgraphia. She is reading on grade level now, but her handwriting still resembles a second grader's. We will continue using her computer or wide rule notebook paper for general schoolwork and graphing paper for math. Language Arts: We're going to alternate Writing Strands with fiction writing, maybe continuing Adventures In Fantasy, or maybe doing NANOWRIMO? She will also work through Vocabulary From Classical Roots books 6 and A, as well as Commas. Otherwise, grammar will be corrected on any completed schoolwork. In lieu of a spelling workbook, I will put any misspelled words into her Word Vault (she daily writes the words from the vault, and she gets to tear up the index card once she spells it correctly three days in a row). She will continue to work on handwriting, with an emphasis of writing smaller. Literature: We do secular homeschooling, so we will be starting the Bible as literature, covering Genesis-Psalms. She will also read the Lord of the Rings trilogy and Macbeth. If she finishes that early, I will offer Sherlock Holmes. She absolutely loved the one episode of the BBC's Sherlock that we let her watch. Beyond that, I haven't decided. Maybe Ender's Game or The Hunger Games or more of Douglas Adams' books? She also loves drama with humor, so I'll have to think about something for that. Math: Start Saxon 8/7. I'm not sure yet how many lessons per week or if I'll add in something different for Fridays. Science: We are doing biology, with Holt Life Science as the spine, but we'll take a detour with McHenry's Protozoa. Social Studies: For the first time since I started homeschooling, we are not going to use SOTW. Instead, I am creating a history of science/inventions course, emphasizing mealtime discussions of how innovation influenced politics. I will probably assign a research paper per semester. Spanish: She will finish Spanish 1 (an old textbook my high school teacher gave me) and the customized workbook. On Fridays, she'll use the British Mi Vida Loca website. Art: Seventh grade art is a year of choices. Every week, she'll get 2-3 choices for ideas for her art journal, as well as 2-3 choices for multimedia projects. She can choose to do one or more from each list, as well as anything else that tickles her fancy. We may work through a colored pencil book to work on shading, highlighting and blending. Logic: She'll do Logic Liftoff, Mindbenders 4, read Fallacy Detective, continue doing variety puzzles or crosswords. We'll be doing the spreadsheet section of EasyPeasy's Computer Level 8. The year before my kids turn 13, I have them do CommonSense Media's Digital Citizenship course, so they understand the potential consequences once they are finally able to have their own email address. She will also continue Python programming, maybe continuing with Minecraft, or maybe something else. Life Skills: She will cook one dinner per week, gradually building up her cookbook binder with recipes that she wants to eat. She'll also work through Discover What You're Best At and research potential careers related to those results. Health/PE: She wants to learn about specific communicable diseases, so I'll make up a list for her to research one per week. She and I both have health issues with our legs, so we'll continue with leg stretching exercises. We're also getting her into the habit of riding a recumbent bike when she watches tv. She enjoys archery, so I'll probably include some practice for that as well. Electives: She wants to study developmental psychology, but I am struggling to find an appropriate source for that. She also wants to learn how to play her father's trumpet. We'll see if he has time next year to give her weekly lessons. I know it looks like a lot, but quite a bit of it is once per week or less. And with the COVID-19 quarantine, there are no outside activities. Ruth

She definitely wants newborn through 5 years old. But even if something covered the entire lifespan, we could skip the pages for the ages she's not currently interested in. I'm looking for anything that is comprehensible without a high school biology class. Her science next year will be biology, but we're going to use a middle grades text as the spine.

My youngest daughter, who will be in seventh grade next year, wants to do developmental psychology as an elective. I am struggling to find anything not intended for high school/college level. Basically, she wants the book pediatricians give you when you have a baby (Caring For Your Baby and Young Child), but written on her level. I am really hoping not to have to write something from scratch. Has anyone seen any books and/or curriculum written on this topic for middle school students? Maybe even an in-depth babysitting prep book? Amazon previews tend not to show the parts of those books that would be applicable, so it's hard for me to gauge which one would help the most. Thanks, Ruth

We used Adventures in Fantasy ($20 at Rainbow Resource), paired with The Imaginary World of ($12.50 at Amazon, to assist with world building), in 6th grade, and I highly recommend it. By the end of the year, she had written and edited an entire 14,000 word book. We spent the last week of school learning different methods of bookbinding, and ended up making a copy bound like a Little Golden book. She loves seeing *her* book on her bookshelf. If you want to see how we did it, I put my schedule for using these resources up on my blog. Ruth

Yes, Chapter 7 (p164-190) is evolution. Chapter 8 (p192-218) is prehistoric life. Ruth

I bought a used Holt Life Science (2005 edition) for about $10, and spread it over 6th and 7th grade, adding in McHenry's Botany, Cell, and Protozoa units, as well as "The Way We Work". My kid loves to read and make art, so McHenry was a great fit for her. The Holt text gave her a broader understanding, and was easy to implement independently. We haven't done many labs, but that wasn't my priority for this time period. Ruth

This is my second time through third grade, but last time around I was just using K12, so it's my first time actually planning out subjects. We spent most of this last year getting her reading skills on level. Language Arts: Reading: she'll be reading aloud to me everyday, building from 10 minutes to 20+. Magic Tree House, Boxcar Children, Wayside School, Harry Potter, whatever it takes to keep her loving to read. Literature: I think this might be the last year I also read aloud to her, we'll see. Ramona Quimby, Age 8, The Moffats, The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe, Betsy, Tacy, and Tib, The Trumpet of the Swan, and a few others. The goal is for her to be in love with books. Grammar: Exercises in English, level C Spelling: Building Spelling Skills 3 (Evan Moor) Composition: finish Writing Strands 2, then start Writing Strands 3. Alternate weeks of writing projects with weeks of journal writing. Handwriting: she still needs practice with printing, so I'm going to use Start Write to print off copywork worksheets. Math: Saxon Math 3 History: we'll start the year with Build Your Library's prehistory unit study, then move into Story of the World 1. My plan is to start every afternoon with a history basket and let the kids choose what they want to read/do. We'll probably finish the year between the Greeks and the Romans, but now that we're looping back around, I've decided I'm not in a rush to cover all of history, so we'll slow down if we all want to. Science: finish RSO Chemistry, then start something else in the spring. Maybe use The Way Things Work as a spine. Art: Artistic Pursuits 1, Drawing With Children, Artpac 3, plus weekly projects. This kid loves art. Health/PE: 1 trimester of nutrition, 1 trimester of discussing various disabilities, and one trimester TBD. PE will include dancing and imagination-based active games with her older sister. Life Skills: Typing Instructor for Kids -I'm hoping that with some keyboarding skills, she can do her composition on the computer more easily than by hand. We'll also work on continuing independence in the kitchen. We'll wait to start Vocabulary From Classical Roots until 4th grade. Also, Logic. Spanish may wait until middle school. I want her to feel comfortable in her own language before starting her in another one. ETA: Apart from what we're studying at home, she'll also be attending a weekly class at our local library for 6-12yo homeschoolers. They do various topics each week, from discussing book genres to writing and filming a movie. We'll probably also take classes at our local co-op. Previous classes have been fun stuff like games, art, drama. Ruth

For nutrition, I've found a few helpful lessons from this site: http://www.alliancetofeedthefuture.org/curricula Some of the lessons are pretty biased, but it gave me enough ideas and worksheets to fill 11 weeks of health for my soon-to-be third grader. Ruth

This year, I'm going to try enforcing some rules about daily activities before they get any screentime. Basically, everyday they will need to: read something, learn something, create something, and move their body. I'm going to post a few suggestions for each category, but they can do whatever they want within those limits (i.e. create = build Legos, write a story, draw a picture, etc). We'll see how well I'm able to enforce this plan. If they end up trying to cheat, I may just institute a "no electronics before 4pm" rule. Previous summers, the kids have gotten too much screen time at our house while I feverishly planned the schoolwork for the next year. They usually do just enough for the library's summer reading program to earn the prize, but otherwise the summer has been a free-for-all. I'm hoping my plan will make for a more moderate summer. Ruth

Math -finish Saxon 8/7 and start an algebra program, probably not Saxon. My husband was one credit short of a math minor, so I'm going to let him pick the math courses from here on. As long as the book has clear explanations and a solutions manual, I'm happy. I never went beyond calculus, so I don't know what would be helpful to prepare for upper level math. History-we finished SOTW4, so we're going to start the year with prehistory and then do SOTW1. We won't quite get to the Romans, but this kid has never done ancient history, so I want to give her time with all the cultures to do lots of supplemental reading. Instead of assigning chapters from library books, this year we'll try assigning the hour after lunch for history, and I'll just put all the library books in a bin and let the kids choose what they want to read each day. She will have to take notes/draw for everything she reads, in addition to various projects. Science-finish her biology textbook (taking notes/drawing), and then start another science in the spring. I'll let her pick. Language Arts Literature: at least the Bible, The Hobbit and the Lord of the Rings trilogy, and another Shakespeare. She needs to have read those to get more out of what I have planned for 8th grade lit. I may use Fridays for poetry/short stories, depending on how everything fits. This kid gobbles up books. We may pace slowly through the above books in the mornings, and I feed her less intense stuff for the evenings. Composition: alternating weeks of Writing Strands 5 and free writing (writing another novel, short stories, or just journal writing). We may spend a few weeks submitting works for writing contests. Vocab: Vocab from Classical Roots A Spanish: Avancemos 2, maybe watching Destinos for fun or other tv shows in Spanish Logic: Orbiting with Logic, Python with Minecraft, Fallacy Detective, and variety puzzles Art: We'll continue with art journaling and projects. This year though, there will be a lot of choices. I'm striving more for inspiration than must-do projects. We may also do an outside class, if I can find one close enough. Health/PE: topics on disabilities and mental illnesses, biking and various games that take advantage of her imaginative nature to get her moving more Skills: I dropped the ball this last year, and have hardly taught her how to cook anything. We know so many people here who don't cook at all, and I don't want her to be dependent on restaurants for the rest of her life. I really need to schedule kitchen time so it actually gets done. This kid spent a lot of the last year in "imagination land", so I'm trying to give her room to indulge her muse. Soon enough, she'll be locked into college prep, and I think it'll be good having a year to breathe while working through the hormones. Ruth