Went to (UU) church with Ami this morning where the kids had a Montessori style religion lesson.  Came home and had garlic bread with dense tomato sauce for lunch, part of our new semi-vegan diet (no meat, no dairy, but eggs and honey okay). 

Then we got crafty.  First, I cut appropriate pumpkin shapes out of orange construction paper, triangles and background scenes out of black, white ghosts and tombstones, yellow triangles and grins, brown stems and green leaves.  Then I gave the kids gluesticks so they could put them together to make jack-o-lanterns and graveyard scenes.   With all the crazy shapes we had left over, they made some really neat designs.  We also made letters to spell BOO! and HAPPY HALLOWEEN!  I gave Bear black letter outlines and had him glue yellow shapes onto the black to make letters.  We then taped these all over our walls for decoration. 

The kids played at Ben and Jerry's Halloween website for awhile after. 

He now can spell his name, our friend Ami's name, and the word "boo."  He writes them all over everything, proudly.  He keeps asking me how to spell the cat's name, too, so I suspect he'll have that down soon.   I will start a phonics program with him tomorrow morning (Happy Phonics from LovetoLearn) but I am also encouraging his whole language approach to teaching himself.  It takes both, I'm sure.