Homeschool Day in the Life: Trisha, homeschooling mama to three in California

A homeschool day in the life looks different almost every day, right? Over on our Instagram page, we love to give you a peek into lots of homeschool days regardless of how they change day to day.

Today, we’re going to give you a peek into the homeschool day in the life of Trisha, homeschooling mama to three kids, who has a passion for sharing resources with other homeschooling families.

We can all learn and be inspired by one another, regardless of our homeschool approach. It’s not about looking good for social media, it’s about the connection going on inside our homeschool walls and sharing with others what works for us.

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We might all homeschool a little differently, but we can always look for ideas from each other that inspire, encourage and equip us in our own homeschool days. So each week we create blog posts for you to access later of each of those “days in the life”. We hope you keep coming back for more inspiration. Keep going, mama! These days at home are so worth it!

Meet Trisha

Trisha @juiceboxhomeschool is a homeschool mom of three kids ages 6, 9, and 12 years old in California. She is passionate about home education, and loves sharing all of the things that have worked well (or not so well) with her family. 

Their style is eclectic with a lean towards Classical and Charlotte Mason. Trisha absolutely loves to teach history, and has a hard time setting on just one history curriculum. Can you relate? 

Outside of homeschooling, Trisha’s kids are involved in the performing arts, especially acting and dancing. You may even see them in a commercial or tv show here or there!

Good Morning!

Good morning! I’m so excited to be with you today because the Learning Well community is a place I get inspiration! I hope what I share will be helpful or encouraging in some way, no matter how small. 

My name is Trisha and I have been homeschooling since my oldest was in Kindergarten. Friends would ask how long I’m going to do this, and my typical response is that I will reassess each year and see if it still works for our family. Here we are 7 years later, and it still works well for us!

We run a small business creating video content for brands and bloggers. I mostly handle the administrative and accounting tasks, while my husband does a lot more of the heavy lifting. That offers a somewhat flexible schedule for me to plan out and execute our homeschool days. 

Once the pandemic hit, a lot of friends reached out to ask about home education. In these conversations, I realized not only how much I LOVE myself, but enjoy sharing what I’ve learned over the years. So I started a homeschool specific account @juiceboxhomeschool and have found so much connection and kindness in this space, which I hope to contribute to as well!

Morning Time

Do you struggle to get the day started on the right note a few times a week? That used to be me. Even though I tried to keep everyone organized, the day usually started in what felt like disjointed chaos. 

The last couple of years, I finally added Morning Time to our routine. What a game changer for us! This is what we were working through as a family a month ago. We never do all of these things in one mornings, but go through 2-4 of them on a rotational basis. It could be scripture memory and a poem one day or a chapter from our read aloud, lesson in habit training and a hymn on another day. It almost doesn’t matter because the important part to me is doing these short, but meaningful things altogether. It creates a sense of unity and connection before venturing off into the day.

Teaching Reading

This is the first school year that I have three full fledged readers! If you’re a homeschool mom, you know that little victorious feeling I’m talking about. Here are some things that helped us get here in case you’re just approaching this stage:

? Reading living picture books and short chapter books aloud as much as your voice allows (or audiobooks!)

? 100 Gentle Lessons in Sight and Sound by A Gentle Feast (we did book 1 and 2 with my littlest)

? Letting them read books just below their level to increase their confidence and love for storytelling.

Curriculum

A quick list of the core curriculum we are using (and almost done with) for this year! I share a lot about our curriculum on my page @juiceboxhomeschool because I do love researching and sharing about those gems that work well for us in case it helps another. Connection always over curriculum, and you are the boss, not the curriculum, yes! Once you’ve established that mentally, curriculum can be very enjoyable.

Curriculum Supplements

We love to use the kitchen, the outdoors, and all kinds of art supplies as part of our education. Pictured is a Holland study from Beautiful Feet Books (linked in my profile @juiceboxhomeschool), which incorporates art, nature, and recipes. In addition to the core curriculum, I have brought in some small business supplements for seasonal hands on activities. Some of my favorites are:

Brighter Day Press
The Peaceful Press
CM Simple Studies
Exploring Nature with Children
Creating a Masterpiece

Ending the Day

I like to end the day reviewing what we finished, and what we are doing the next day or week. Setting up the books, printing out anything needed, reserving books at the library, and making sure I have whatever supplies on hand helps me to have peace of mind. That prepared table is like an invitation to us all the next day! Sometimes it is even just crossing off something I had planned knowing it will just be too much to handle that day too. 

The beauty of the homeschool community is that we all have unique situations and families, but we all have that common goal of providing a great education for our children (whatever that looks like in our minds) and helping them to develop into a healthy, mature, service minded adult. You can probably tell, but I absolutely love homeschooling and growing myself so I can help my children. 

Thank you for hanging out with us today. It has been a treat to connect with you here. ☺️ I’d be happy if you join me @juiceboxhomeschool to continue the conversations.

Thank you so much to Trisha for sharing your family’s day with us!

If you want to see more Day in the Life photos and videos, be sure to check out our Instagram profile.  There are highlights of each takeover at the top.