The Well-Trained Mind: A Guide to Classical Education at Home (Third Editition),   ISBN:9780393067088

Customer Rating: 

This is THE Best Home School resource book that I have ever found - it's the ultimate "how to." The philosophy behind the program makes sense, and is well designed. There are reviews and recommendations for the myriad programs out there that cut out a lot of guesswork for me.

Customer Rating: 

If you want to school your child to be an intelligent and more than competent member of society this is the way to do it. The best thing about this kind of education? No text books! The child learns out of books which have been written for the sake of learning facts and have not been polluted with some sort of agenda. The child gets a pure education the way children are designed to learn. Then when they are older they learn how to think and react logically. It's painful how children grow up and never learn how to think critically. We chose this curriculum because there are lists of resources starting from preschool aged kids all the way to 12th grade. These lists are key, however, you should not stick to them completely but use your creativity and find other books or projects that might be better. For example, I did not like their suggestion for grammar stage anatomy. The Kingfisher First Human Body Encyclopedia. In fact, I find that I don't care for the Kingfisher series of encyclopedia's very much at all. There is a serious lack of content in them. I chose the First Human Body Encyclopedia by DK instead. But here is the beauty, you really don't even need the kids encyclopedia. There are enough resources out there that allow you to make you're own curriculum for anatomy fun. Get books like "Uncover the Human Body" by Luann Columbo, "My Body" by PATTY CARRATELLO, "Head to Toe Science" by Jim Wiese, and since kids love visuals get an adult illustrated anatomy book like "Human Body" by Martyn Page, being careful with the reproductive pictures of course. The adult anatomy book then can be used in grades 5 and 9 to give the student a more in depth study of anatomy and you save money by not getting a kids encyclopedia. This is assuming that your kids aren't squeamish. My 7 year old is just fascinated with whats inside his body and finds the adult anatomy books much more interesting than the children's books which tend to give dumbed-down information under the guise of "age appropriate material". Kids are capable of understanding so much more than we give them credit for. Mine surprise me on a daily basis. The down side of The Well Trained Mind? It takes time to research your books...lots of time! Time to: find books at your library, place holds and wait for them, choose the best ones, look through them once you get them and teach out of them. It's worth it when you see just how much better your kids understand the subject and you'll swoon when your child repeats facts to his friends from some random lesson a few weeks ago. Its worth it if you are prepared to spend the time making it successful. The program is designed to help your child get a world class education, but it's up to give it to your kids.

Customer Rating: 

This book changed me from very against Homeschooling, to being a Homeschooler.

Do not be put off by the thickness of this book. It is divided by age group, so parts may not pertain to you yet.

A reader has the chance to glean from the experience and wisdom of the author, and her adaptive approach to the Trivium Method of homeschooling.

After much research we are using this book as our manual to closely follow the Trivium, and looking into the many suggestions for curriculum that supports the Trivium Method.

Customer Rating: 

I borrowed this book from a friend because I was contemplating homeschooling. I really enjoyed it on my first read through and felt that I could follow the plan. I ordered a number of the curriculum materials that were suggested, after time spent researching them, but have since quit using them or sent them back.
I studied curriculum development and assessment when I was in college. I've looked at hundreds and hundreds of curricula in my day. I would have to say that the recommendations in this book are some of the worst products that I have seen.
Math and science are treated very lightly in this book. My background is in physics, chemistry and math. One of my major reasons for wanting to homeschool was that my kids were not getting science and adequate math at school, based on recommendations from the American Academy for the Advancement of Science and the National Counsel of Teacher of Mathematics. I found it very frustrating that reading about biology and doing token demonstrations was the recommendation from these authors.
Their background is in the humanities. Which I thought they treated much more judiciously. Although I started reading a child's version of the Odyssey with my kids and decided that it was way too violent for them. Perhaps I'll revisit it when they are in middle school.
Their grammar and language mechanics recommendations also leave a lot to be desired.
I could write a ten page annotated paper about all of the problems with this book and its curriculum recommendations, but I'll spare you and just say that you can do much, much better.

Customer Rating: 

I had read so many good reviews and was worried I might have too high of expectations - but the book is great. Very interesting and very helpful with specifics about every grade. I really liked her breakdowns of how much time could be spent on each subject depending on the grade level.
As with all advice, take what works for your family and leave the rest:)