January has been the month of "recovering from Christmas!" What a month. I'd love to say that we're back in our normal routine BUT between illnesses and snow days that cancel school, it hasn't happened yet. Thank goodness we're a flexible group!

This month, instead of listing every book we read, I'm going to highlight several and leave it at that.

I wasn't wrong.

I finished the entire story, minus a few chapters in the middle because I was in a hurry more than anything else. I knew way too early in the story what was going to happen. Maybe not all of the exact details of how it would happen, but the what was not a mystery to me.

That part bummed me out.

I love it when a story holds me in its thrall all the way through -- thrall meaning that it keeps me curious to the very end. I finished more because the story was well done than that I was in thrall over it.

I haven't picked up the next books in the series. I do plan to read them, I'm simply not in a hurry.

My seven year old brings home a new Mo Willems book every week as her AR book. We read the book -- typically she reads it to me or her father, sometimes if the book is harder or longer, we will read it to her again. The next day she takes an AR test on it.

Mo Willems books can be long -- like up to 60 pages. But there isn't a lot of text to read on any one page. This makes the books fairly ideal for a beginning reader, like my first grader. Still, I was getting sick of them. I mentioned my growing distaste to the teacher. That kind, loving woman took my hand and said, "But she loves them."

I got it. Better for my child to love the books she is reading than for me to enjoy them (especially on the second or third time through). Most Mo Willems books are great to read. My aversion is typically because I'm also making dinner and dealing with a hunger induced meltdown by the 3-year old.  I've found reading the book after we eat dinner makes it vastly more enjoyable.

Above are the 3 Mo Willems that we read this month, including the one sitting on my dining room table as I type. That's I Love My New Toy!, if you're interested.

Below is a link to Mo Willems' Amazon Author page. If you click that link, or any other link in this post, I earn a small amount from Amazon for recommending it to you.

That's the short list for January. I hope your January was amazing. Let me know what your favorite book to read in January was in the comments section. Thanks.

About four days before it, my eldest announced that pacifiers were for babies and that she would give hers to the Pacifier Fairy. I didn’t even know a Pacifier Fairy was a thing but I was not about to let the opportunity slip by.

​There were a few hiccups on the way. Ultimately, my eldest gave all of her pacifiers to the Pacifier Fairy before her fifth birthday.

​I want my kids to know and love their stories. The Pacifier Fairy is my first effort to put down in words the stories my kids (and hopefully your kids) will enjoy for years to come. Yes, I’m also hopeful that my grandkids will one day hear these tales.

This summer we're homeschooling for a number of reasons:

• the kindergarten teacher told us we needed to in order to prepare my eldest for 1st grade
• as a trial to see if mom and kids can handle it

And, because it is more of a trial, we are not spending gobs of money buying curriculums and stuff. In fact we've spend roughly $75 for supplies, excluding art supplies which we would have wanted regardless (art is a big thing in our home).

Reminder: most links are affiliates to Amazon. If you click them, I might earn a fee but there is no additional cost to you.

I also made sight word flash cards using 3x5 notecards. I should note here that my eldest loves to memorize things and isn't great at phonics. Sight word flash cards are a good choice for us. I used 100 Words Kids Need To Read by 1st Grade by Scholastic to determine the sight words. (Several of our workbooks are Scholastic.) I plan to have my eldest use the 100 Words book itself as a record of what she learns.

My eldest is fascinated with writing and my youngest isn't far behind. They both like to sit and pretend to write stories in their respective notebooks.

​We're going to do a little work on handwriting. My eldest needs more practice and shows an interest in cursive. My youngest just needs to start. I got each of them a K and Grade 1 D'Nealian practice book. I got the consumable versions and fully plan for them to be destroyed in the process of learning. I have no idea if we will get to use both of them over the summer, but we now have them for when we are ready for them.

We were gifted a set of Miqoun Math. We got the Orange book, Red book, Lab Sheets, and First-Grade Diary. Since that's a fairly complete set, we're going to use it along with whatever else we have in random workbooks from Costco and Dollar General. I figure we can use plain paper with me writing out additional problems if we need them.

I'm keeping this informal for now, since I'm trialing. We've got a few Little Scientists books around, a flower and vegetable garden, and baking options to keep us plenty busy. Bugs, animals, and poop seem to be big topics for my kids and I'm sure some combination of those will arise during the summer months -- especially as my youngest potty trains.

Both kids have asked to take gymnastics and will participate in a local class. Swimming lessons will be part of the summer as well.

My eldest has been asking to learn to sew. We have a doll quilt in process that should finish up during the summer. Then I purchased a Unicorn quilt pattern for us to get started on.

Baking and cooking plus normal stuff like cleaning up their own messes and chores to earn money will fill things out.