The Beginning of Back to the Basics

It was back to the books today after a long holiday weekend. Tasha is working steadily through her work and making very good progress. For Laura, it was the first day of what I call "Back to the Basics" programs. After realizing that my daughter lost a lot of retention over summer vacation, and seeing that she is not where she should be in some areas, I've changed things drastically.
We went to work-book, mastery type learning for the core subjects. I know this isn't as popular on all the blogs as many of the other curriculum, but I have to do what is best for my daughter. She learns well this way. Slowly I hope to add other things back in to give her a more rounded experience. Workbook programs do help me in a couple different areas. First, I know that the basics are being covered. I know she is getting a solid educational foundation to which we can add. Second, I feel like I'm not as overwhelmed, which I hope helps her to feel more relaxed and more able to focus on learning and not trying to get this and that done.

It must be working. Laura took the initiative to do her own experiment in learning about the earth's rotation and axis. She found a sponge ball we had and put a long nail through it to demonstrate the axis and how it works.

So far, though I never expected to go to this type of schooling, it seems to be working well. We'll take things day by day. I am surprised to find that the work is more in depth than I thought it would be. I feared the work would be too easy, or boring. I've flipped through the material we have gotten so far and am impressed that it isn't as simple as I imagined. It's actually quite thorough. Of course, I'd rather it be knowledge from living books, but I will see where this new direction leads.