Wonderstead

Wonderstead students ages 8th and up are automatically enrolled in this course. We have a few spots available to area homeschoolers grades 8th and up. Visit our website to sign your learner up!

Students will study one of Shakespeare’s plays, beginning with Julius Caesar, Twelfth Night, King John, or Richard II. The class opens with conversations about Shakespeare’s influence on language and culture, his historical context, and what it means to approach these works together as readers and performers.

Our first few meetings are spent sitting in a circle and reading aloud, ensuring that every student has the opportunity to encounter Shakespeare’s language with their own voice. Because Shakespeare is for everyone, students will come with different levels of reading fluency and comfort speaking aloud. The culture of the classroom is intentionally shaped to foster patience, confidence, and a sense of belonging for all learners.

Instructor: Miss Lindley Praytor taught Shakespeare in a Charlotte Mason setting for seven years, working with students from 4th through 12th grade. She also served for six years on the Board of Directors for Bards of Birmingham, a local theatre company specializing in staging Shakespeare’s plays with children. During her maternity leave, she created curriculum to help other teachers implement best practices for teaching Shakespeare in their classrooms based on material she created for fellow educators at the 2018 Childlight Conference where she was a featured workshop leader.

A former theatre kid with a deep love of classical literature, history, and language, Miss Lindley believes that Shakespeare is for everyone. She seeks to create a learning environment that feels to students “like their own backyard”: a place to be playful, imaginative, and even bored, because it is a place where they feel truly at home.

Her classes are designed to give children ownership of the material and to ensure that every student feels empowered to encounter the work and words that rightfully belong to them.

Read more about this course and the instructor at our website!

New class offering for the community! Homeschoolers can join Wonderstead students in this Philosophical Exploration, 1 year course, 8th - 12th graders.

By the end of the course, a student should be able to read a philosophical piece, reconstruct the argument being made, evaluate that argument both in terms of whether the claims are true/false/need more evidence and in terms of whether the claims really do support the conclusion, and clearly articulate their own ideas/questions/concerns. 

Instructor: Brynn Welch, Professor of Philosophy, UAB.
In 2016, I joined the faculty at UAB, where I’m currently Professor of Philosophy. In my time here, I have taught classes on family, social/political philosophy, and educational justice. Following my participation in the 2022 and 2023 NEWLAMP (New England Workshop for Learning About Multicultural Philosophy), my teaching focus is on broadening the perspectives students encounter in a philosophy classroom. I have been fortunate to receive several awards recognizing my teaching, including the Outstanding Faculty Award (2016, Emory & Henry College), the Dean’s Award for Excellence in Teaching (2021, UAB), the Disability Support Services Outstanding Faculty Award (2022, UAB), and the David W. Concepción Prize for Excellence in Teaching Philosophy (2024, American Philosophical Association, American Association of Philosophy Teachers, Teaching Philosophy Association).

CLASS TIME:
1:30-2:30pm Thursdays
Every 5th or 6th week we take a break. See the Wonderstead school calendar.

Starts: August 20th. Ends in early June. (final class date TBD) (Year long course, approximately $23/class)

Grades: 8th-12th
CHOOSE ACT Families: Wonderstead is a CHOOSE Act Education Service Provider! If you’d like to use your CHOOSE Act funds to enroll in these courses, email us for an invoice.

philosophyforkids

Introduction to Human Anatomy + Lab, 8th - 12th graders - open to the community! By UAB Professor Cara Bullard, PT DPT at .school

Wonderstead high schoolers are already enrolled in this class. We’ve got 5 spots available to area homeschoolers - spread the word!

Students are invited into a foundational exploration of human anatomy, with a focus on different systems interactions—musculoskeletal, cardiovascular, endocrine, and neurologic—interact to sustain everyday life.

The aim is twofold: to build a working knowledge of how structures and systems function together, and to kindle a lasting sense of wonder about the body’s remarkable capacity. By the end of the course, students will be equipped to apply their learning to real-world decisions—whether considering nutrition, physical activity, or daily habits—and to see those choices through the lens of whole-body health.

This course may spark the minds of students who may be interested in the medical field. It will have a lab component for homeschool families looking to add lab sciences to their curriculum.

Instructor
Cara Bullard, PT, DPT is an Assistant Professor at the University of Alabama at Birmingham. Dr. Bullard obtained both her Bachelor of Science degree in Health and Rehabilitation Science & her Doctor of Physical Therapy degree from The University of Pittsburgh. When she is not in the academic world of teaching or conducting research, Dr. Bullard can be found in her most cherished role, a mother to her four small children. Dr. Bullard is passionate about health, movement, the human body, and the impact of physical activity on child development.

CLASS TIME:

1:30-2:30pm Tuesdays
August 18th - December 15th, we skip every 6th week. See the Wonderstead Calendar here.
If you’d prefer to pay in 2 installments, email us.

Grades: 8th-12th

CHOOSE ACT Families: Wonderstead is a CHOOSE Act Education Service Provider! If you’d like to use your CHOOSE Act funds to enroll in these courses, email us for an invoice.

Syllabus on our site!

Now enrolling! (3 spots left!) This afternoon club is open to the community.

Debate Coach Mrs. Duckworth says, “It’s a fun place for kids to disagree!” 

Debate club was created to give students a safe space to disagree. Students are invited to pick their topics and learn about the art of debating through several classes throughout the month. Jennifer brings in debate coaches for guidance, teachers for education, and guest judges to judge the debates at the end of each month.

At the end of the semester, debaters should be able to have a conversation, think critically, research for writing papers, and debate at the basic- intermediate levels. 

Jennifer Duckworth is the Founder and CEO of Neighbor Foundations a full-service educational organization providing K–5 tutoring, Kids’ Debate Club, and homeschool consulting. She is also the co-founder of Black Homeschoolers of Birmingham, where she champions safe, supportive spaces for families of Black and Brown homeschooling students to learn, play, and thrive together.

Looking for a remarkable teacher to join our team! For more information: https://www.wonderstead.school/we-are-hiring

Wonderstead has been awarded a $10,000 VELA grant! VELA leads the Indie Education movement, where families are discovering education that better fits their children, their values, and their communities. THANK YOU VELA!

It is invigorating to have our work on Wonderstead validated by VELA. We’ll have access to peer networks, funding and resources to keep our education model sustainable.

A huge thank you for our planning team and for every family trusting us with their learners this year!

One question we’ve been sitting with at Wonderstead is: What kind of adult culture helps create the kind of childhood experience we hope to offer?

This summer, we’ll continue studying relationship-centered communication, collaborative problem solving, restorative approaches to conflict, and more thoughtful ways of leading and making decisions.

We want children to experience adults who listen, repair when things feel hard, and model how to navigate tension with care. Schools can be places of respect, trust, and compassion, and that begins with the adults.

Yesterday’s weather was so beautiful. I spent some time outside, paying attention to small things.

Building Wonderstead has felt a lot like this lately… focusing on details that might seem small, but shape how children come to trust themselves as learners.

slowly and with care.

Seen yesterday: hop trefoil

There’s something magical about materials that meet a child right where they are.

This week we welcomed a new set of early literacy materials to our toolkit! These are simple, beautiful, and come with handmade pouches 🥹 These kinds of materials invite children to slow down, to notice, to connect sound with symbol, and meaning with memory.

We’ll be pairing, matching, and listening closely to letter and word sounds in the year ahead…