Our homeschool year has begun! 2026

Chansin Esparza

Aug 20

2 min read

Our homeschool year has begun!

The boys and I officially started back to homeschooling on the same day Felicity went back to school. Going into my fifth year as a homeschooling mom, I felt much more relaxed and ready than I have in previous years. Here are a few highlights from our first day:

(1) A fun breakfast

It’s not healthy, but it makes the day feel special. I picked up donuts, and Jason made bacon. (Gotta include some protein!)

In past years, I’ve also purchased a small gift for each child. I decided that wasn’t necessary this year. Our house is overflowing with more stuff than we can manage, and my spoiled kids have more than they need! So instead, I leaned into making breakfast special, and the kids were perfectly happy.

(2) Our traditional first-day photo

The children are used to taking a first-day-of-school photo, so they don’t complain. It’s fun to notice the differences from year to year as they grow.

They still try to play a trick on me, though. Every year, they flip the board around to the other side so it reads, “Last Day of School” right as I’m pushing the button.

(3) Piano lessons resume

The boys still practice the piano over the summer, but I don’t require them to work on anything in particular, and I don’t monitor their progress very closely.

So during his first lesson, August played piece after piece from his performance book and asked me to “sign off” on them. He did great!

(4) Ending the school day with games

Finishing all their schoolwork coincided with a pop-in visit from their grandparents, so we ended the school day with board games!

Other good parts of our day:

Our daily one-mile walk
Read-alouds and narrations
Sketching a house wren based on a reading and using a YouTube tutorial

Low point:

Micah struggled with handwriting, and there were a few tears. Later, I realized I had asked him to copy too much and then hadn’t been encouraging enough.

I’ll be making a few adjustments to how we approach handwriting in the coming days.

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Overall, it was a good first day—and I’m grateful to begin another year of homeschooling.