Well-Trained Mind Press

01/24/2025

The Trump administration's recent Executive Order 14170, "Restoring Names That Honor American Greatness," mandates that federal documents and databases begin referring to the Gulf of Mexico as the Gulf of America. We have no plans to make this change on the maps in our books. But this order does create an opportunity for you and your kids to discuss geography, history, and the names we give to places.

Placenames can be quite controversial. For instance, every year, we get letters from Korean schoolchildren asking us to call the body of water between Korea and Japan "The East Sea" instead of "The Sea of Japan." This touches on the deeply painful history between Korea and Japan, including Japan's decades-long brutal colonial rule, and other issues of national pride and trauma. The body of water between Iran and the Arabian Peninsula also has a disputed name, with some countries calling it the Persian Gulf, and other countries insisting that it is the Arabian Gulf. There are plenty of others: for instance, using the name Malvinas instead of Falkland Islands, or Judea and Samaria instead of West Bank, can be quite controversial depending on where you are and who you're speaking to. In the United States, Fort Bragg was renamed Fort Liberty in 2023: some veterans and soldiers resented the change, but others pointed out that not only did Braxton Bragg fight for the Confederacy against the United States, but he was also one of the least competent Confederate generals, and his own colleagues tried on multiple occasions to get him fired! Naming the fort after him in the first place had more to do with the politics of land acquisition in the South in 1918 than with his glorious military reputation.

Here's a potential project: How did your city or county or country get its name? Who named it? Was there another name before that? Do some groups still call it by its old name? What about the rivers or oceans or bays that you live near? You could get days, if not months, of historical/geographical/cultural discussions out of this.

01/21/2025

TimelineTuesday: On 1/21/68, in the "if you ever think YOU messed up bigtime at work" category, a pilot of an American B-52 bomber armed with nuclear weapons piles some extra cushions on top of a vent in the aircraft. The cushions catch fire mid-flight, and the plane crashes near Thule Air Force base in northern Greenland. Despite a months-long search with hundreds of men and aircraft and submarines, only 3 of the 4 nuclear bombs are ever found.

01/20/2025

The movie "Selma" is a powerful educational tool for Martin Luther King Jr. Day. Rather than attempting a full biography of King, it dramatizes a single chapter in his career: the 1965 struggles in Alabama to secure voting rights for Black Americans. While it movingly depicts King's inspiring and important role in the Civil Rights Movement, it doesn't make it seem like he was the sole actor; the ordinary folks and lesser-known leaders play vital roles in bravely fighting for justice.

Recommended for middle- and high-school students; not recommended for elementary-age children because of violent scenes (the violence is certainly historically appropriate, but it's still upsetting for young viewers) and a scene where the FBI harasses and threatens King with accusations and purported recordings of infidelity.

01/17/2025

Ok, so maybe we WON'T start that Well-Trained Mind TikTok account just yet.

01/15/2025

Visit our site from now through January 18th for sizzling savings on homeschool classics!

01/14/2025

TimelineTuesday: 1/14/1943, Allied leaders gather for the Casablanca Conference. Things get off to a rocky start because Franklin D. Roosevelt thinks that the conference will be deciding things like "should we invade Italy?" and "how can we stop these U-Boats?" but Winston Churchill is under the impression that the topics of discussion will be "Did Ilsa ever regret her decision to get on the plane instead of staying with Rick?" and "Was the nightclub real, or just a movie set?"

01/13/2025

It's time for sizzling summer savings! Yes, we're freezing and snowbound in Virginia, but it's summer in the Southern Hemisphere, and that's all the excuse we needed for a sale! Don't wait for summer to stock up on homeschool essentials: save 35% on physical and 40% on digital formats of Math with Confidence, The Story of the World, Math Facts that Stick, First Language Lessons, and more. Visit the Well-Trained Mind site from now through Saturday the 18th.

01/10/2025

Trying to decide which figure to assemble first! These are just a few of the movable/posable figures from "Epic Heroes and Heroines of the Middle Ages," coming in March from Figures in Motion and Well-Trained Mind.

01/07/2025

TimelineTuesday: 1/7/1954, the Georgetown-IBM Experiment uses a computer to translate 60 Russian sentences into English. Scientists of the 1950s predict: "By the year 2000, computers will connect all human cultures with perfect translation, leading to worldwide unity that enables humanity to focus on its most important tasks, such as finding new recipes that combine Jello with canned meats and cottage cheese in ever-tastier ways."

01/06/2025

New video! A flip-through and explanation of our "Writing With Ease" composition curriculum, with our model student, WTMP (Well-Trained, Mindful Possum). Link in comments below.

01/03/2025

All this month, Audible Premium Plus members get 69% off the audiobook of "The Story of the World, Volume 1" by Susan Wise Bauer !
Link in comments.

01/01/2025

2025 is going to be an amazing year for homeschoolers! Here are our predictions, 100% guaranteed to come true:
--Our new reading curriculum, "Who Needs Phonics? Just Guess At the Word and You've Got a Decent Chance of Knowing What It Is," will become a massive bestseller.
-- Wise Bauer will add a bonus chapter to "The Story of the World, Volume 2," finally revealing what happened to the Lost Colony of Roanoke (we're not going to say the secret here, but let's just say it rhymes with "schmaliens").
--Our exciting new Writing curriculum, "Just Let the A.I. Write It For You," will save us lots of money on paper because it will only be one page long. After using this curriculum, students who previously couldn't string three words together will suddenly be writing deep analyses of the hidden meaning of the third cannonball in "War and Peace."
--Our customer service team will be replaced by a chatbot that either responds with "Hang in there, mama, you're actually doing amazing" or "You have absolutely no business homeschooling your children; we're sending a school bus to your house right now." We're not telling you which questions will trigger which responses.
--Kate Snow of 's Homeschool Math Help will write a new math book, "Rationalizing Purchases With Mathematics," which will demonstrate through Euclidean logic that if you weren't going to buy a 200 dollar item, but now it's on sale for 150 and so you buy it, you have actually saved 50 dollars.

We look forward to sharing learning and laughter with you in 2025!

12/23/2024

12/20/2024

Mama, we know you're frazzled about giving your kids the Saturnalia they deserve. You've wrapped L###VII presents, you've shopped for hours at the market stall of Amazonius Primus, you've attended every child's gladiatorial contest, you've pretended to lose every game of knucklebones, you've hand-drizzled every last dormouse with honey and poppy-seeds. You wonder if you'll ever have a moment to yourself. We see you. Go easy on yourself. The true spirit of Saturnalia will still survive even if you don't hand-cut the throat of every sacrificial pig. Your children will remember the love more than they remember the candied peacock-feet.

12/18/2024

Special promotion! Save 50% on downloadable audio of "How God Created Butterflies and Other African-American Stories." Link in comments below.

12/17/2024

TimelineTuesday: 12/17/1790, the Aztec calendar stone is rediscovered by workmen making repairs in the main square of Mexico City. It depicts the Aztec calendar and cycles of centuries to come, including our own era which is mysteriously described as "an age of fools and wonders; a time when all will seem possible until this world ends on a Thursday in 2025 because some lazy high-school student asked an Artificial Intelligence chatbot to do his physics project about nuclear weapons."

12/12/2024

This year, Arizona residents bought more homeschool materials on our website than were purchased from any other state! They far outranked more populous states like Texas and Florida. What's going on in Arizona? If you're an Arizonan, what area do you live in, and what's the homeschool/classical-school scene like where you live?

12/10/2024

TimelineTuesday: 12/10/1799, France adopts the meter as its official unit of length, replacing the old system, which went like this:
5 macarons = 1 croissant
3 croissants = 1 bottle of champagne
2 bottles of champagne = 1 baguette