Well Trained Mind anyone?

[chrissy]

I am delving into the homeschool arena and the well trained mind stuff looks interesting to me. But I'm not sure I understand, is it a philosophy or an actual curriculum? I ordered the book from amazon but it hasn't arrived yet.

Does anyone here use this?

I'm interested in any feedback, good or bad.

Thanks!

[mamarasheika]

hi chrissy
i think we are on the same wavelength, as i just addressed your post on winterpromise.
the well trained mind is a book that follows the philosophy of classical education.
if you do a search here on well trained mind, or classical education, you will get tons.
it is a guidebook of sorts how to follow this philosophy. it tells you just what to do for what age, how many minutes per day etc. so it is really helpful.
it has a certain approach in how it teaches history for instance. everything goes in 3 year (i believe) cycles, so the child builds a solid foundation, and then things repeat for reinforcement. so by the time they get to high school they will have studied ancient civilizations twice already and are able to get more out of things each time. it also uses whole books, not textbooks, and relies on copyowork and narration instead of worksheets or something of that nature.

anyway, i will let you look the rest up. it is a great book. glad you ordered it.
i will be starting it soon with my dd (6).
it made a lot of sense to me. there is also a secular well trained mind group through yahoo if you ae interested. they have been helpful to me.

good luck~
mama-r

[RedWine]

I've perused the book. It's not a specific curriculum, it's a philosophy and guide.

The Well-Trained Mind website has their own message board for those following a classical style.

http://welltrainedmind.com/activeboards.php

You'll see that lots of people combine Core Knoweldge suggestions with WTM suggestions, and/or incorporate Charlotte Mason philosophies as well.

Many of the posters are Christian, but the board itself is inclusive. There is a lot of support to be found there. The parents seem very nice and the experienced ones (been there done that with lots of kids) are very helpful.

[phathui5]

We use The Well Trained Mind as a guide for choosing curriculum. Ds1 enjoyed the first grade program last year and we're planning to stick with it for this coming year.

Most of the materials they recommend are available in the Rainbow Resource catalog, which is where we get our stuff from.