Homeschool Curriculum

Our family has homeschooled for over fifteen years and, during that time, we've (who am I kidding *I've*) perused an Amazon warehouse sized amount of materials in search of the perfect curriculum. Teaching several children of different ages proved to be both the challenge and the joy of my life and now that we are in the midst of homeschooling our youngest child through high-school, I can say the joys have outweighed the challenges, one hundred fold. Still, the challenges did exist and one of the major hurdles when we began homeschooling was figuring out how to do it! We understood, mostly, the "why" but, living in a highly regulated state, we wanted to be sure that we did the "what" properly and according to our family's values so that we and the educational authorities that be, were satisfied.
During the process of exploring all of the different methodologies and ideologies of homeschooling, visiting homeschooling conventions, joining co-ops, leaving co-ops, forming and helping to run co-ops and making lifelong friends along the way, one thing has remained constant. The book, The Well-Trained Mind by Susan Wise Bauer. This wonderful book became the dog-eared, page-turned-down, post-it note filled bible that determined the trajectory of our academic years, which, as every homeschooler knows, is twelve months long. From kindergarten to senior year I would run to it as my go-to resource. Have a question about first grade math? Fourth grade science? Why Latin should be in the curriculum? How to teach logic at all stages? What rhetoric consists of? How to conduct science labs in your kitchen? Can we really, no kidding, count field trips?  It is all there. Literally. All there. And if she doesn't tell you *how* to do it, she tells you where to find *out* how to do it.
In case you haven't heard of her, Susan Wise Bauer was homeschooled through to college and her mother, Jesse Wise Bauer, was a public and private school teacher who decided that teaching her own children was the best option for her family. In the bad old 1970's, no less. Jesse is a co-author on this book and has written several other books on grammar and homeschooling as well. Susan Wise Bauer has her PhD in American Studies from William and Mary College. She also has two Master's degrees and has written nine books in the adult history genre, volumes 1-4 of the children's history series The Story of The World and their accompanying activity books, delivered dozens of lectures and speeches at various homeschooling conferences around the country, taught at William and Mary College, runs a publishing press from her house and, oh, runs a farm and B&B. During this illustrious writing career she also homeschooled four children through to college. Her experience and knowledge is vast and her generosity in sharing all of it with the homeschooling community is very much appreciated. We highly recommend this book for homeschoolers at any stage of the experience. We began with it and I know we'll end with it.




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