Halloween / Trick or Treating

Wander didn't get around to haunting the house until the actual day of Halloween. The past few years Glitter was too scared to let Wander decorate much, but this year she has gotten braver.


Both girls were fairy princesses for Halloween, once again. On the advice of a friend, I let the girls put together their own costumes this year, pulling from all the dress-up they have. They have on their Easter dresses, with ballet tutu's underneath to make the skirts extra poofy.

We hooked up with some neighbors to go trick-or-treating. Trick-or-treating is more fun with a group, especially if the other girl is dressed as a fairy, just like Sparkle and Glitter.


Here's the kids wandering the neighborhood in search of candy. We have an awesome neighborhood; everyone is friendly, and many people recognized the girls from their nightly walks with Wander.


Back home, the girls gorged themselves on candy. I'm not planning on doing much school in the coming week. Hopefully all the candy will be gone by the time we start school again the following week.

All Saints Party

This was our third year attending the annual All Saints Party at the farm of a family in our homeschool group. I let the girls decided which saints they wanted to be this year, as long as it was a nun, a queen, or St. Joan of Arc. (Their dress-up wardrobe includes nun costumes from last year, princess dresses newly sewn for Renaissance Festival, plus a sword and shield.) I pulled out our books of saints and let them browse through the pages.





Sparkle chose St. Elizabeth of Hungary. Glitter chose St. Therese, the Little Flower, same as last year.

Here are the kids on the parade. This year the kids sang "When the Saints Come Marching In" as they marched. I liked the added touch of music to the parade.




After we got home, Sparkle asked why Glitter didn't wear the white collar that goes with her costume. Oops. The girls used the collar as an apron for the dolls, and it got forgotten since it wasn't with the dress-up.


After the parade it was time for the games, and then food, and then random play. I didn't get any pictures of that stuff. Sorry.

Carving Pumpkins

Due to a hectic schedule, we didn't get to carve pumpkins until Friday night.


Glitter, elbow deep in her pumpkin


Sparkle, "Eew, it feels gross." Um, then why do you keep putting your hands in it?


Glitter, still pulling gunk out of her pumpkin



Wander, planning his design


Watch out, Sparkle has a knife


Reading a book while Dad and Mom clean up


Everyone next to his or her pumpkin


Spooky. I love Sparkle's snaggle-tooth pumpkin that she carved herself. Glitter's happy smiley face pumpkin is like a great big hug (she drew the face and had Wander cut it out.). Wander's pumpkin is fierce.


Pumpkins outside for all to enjoy


After admiring the lit jack-o-lanterns, Sparkle and Glitter chased each other in the dark driveway. Surprisingly, neither crashed to the cement.

Glitter can sit and do math

I started bribing Glitter to be quiet. If she sits still, with no toys, not making a sound for 10 minutes, I pay her 10 cents. Co-incidentally, I will give her a manicure (fingernail polish) for 10 cents.

Today she had an assortment of nickels and pennies and wanted both her fingers and toes painted. She knows that a nickel is 5 cents and two five cents make 10 cents. So, she set aside two nickels for her fingernails. Then she counted out her pennies, but had only 9 pennies. No problem, she combined a third nickel with five pennies to get her toenails painted. (It took Sparkle years and much prompting to figure this out! Until last year, Sparkle would only buy something if she could use only coins of the same type, even if she had more than enough money.)


BTW, yes, I have the girls store their money in ketchup squeeze bottles in a cardboard beer carrier. Hey, it works.

Glitter writes

I wasn't planning on teaching Glitter any handwriting until after she could read, but she had different ideas. She started trying to form letters on her own, mostly capital letters with strange stroke orders. So, I decided to step in and teach handwriting before she developed too many bad habits. I thought I'd go slowly with one or two letters a week, as I did with her sister, but I'm finding that Glitter wants to know how to write "all the letters in the factory" right away. Even more surprising is that she has the stamina and patience to work at it.

I originally planned to start Glitter with the salt tray, like Sparkle, but I decided that was too messy. Instead, I got a little magnadoodle that was just the right size for one letter at a time. (Glitter even figured out on her own to turn the magnadoodle landscape to write "m" and "w." She is so much more visual/spacial than Sparkle!) I liked the magnadoodle because it is so quick to erase and less messy, compared to the salt tray.

Once Glitter had the general concept of stroke order for most of her letters, I decided to move her to lined paper to work on letter placement and size. I tried real paper and pencil once, but she just wasn't ready for it. So, I dug out this old dry-erase white board that I got for Sparkle but never used. It was just right for Glitter. The lines are nice and large. It erases quickly and cleanly. Oh, and Glitter is right-handed, so we don't have inky pinky problems.

Here is Glitter after her first day with the white-board. Most of the letters are recognizable because I immediately erased gross mistakes with a quick swipe of the tissue. The letters are in random order because I use flashcards to decide which letter to do next. There are two "u"s because there is a second "u" after the letter "q."

Line 1: i k r v n m a qu
Line 2: s f u y z b t o l g h
Line 3: d p j c x e w

After school, Glitter dug up a little blank booklet and started writing a poem that she's memorized. I think she was trying to write " 'Tis a lesson you .... try try again."