Thursday, November 19, 2009
Mr. Goblin Finds Trouble At The Fair
by Big Snail and Little Snail
Mr. Goblin is a gnome. He is five years old. He has a long, white mustache and beard, a red pointy hat, pointy ears, no glasses, black boots, green shirt, and a black belt. He has a best friend, Mr. Snail. He rides on the back of Mr. Snail. Mr.Snail and Mr. Goblin are best friends. They live in a box right around the corner in the woods. They sleep in their sleeping bags at night when they go to sleep.
One day, they went to the fair. They slid down the giant slide with the clowns. There was a lot of music playing and there were a lot of flashing lights. They stopped to eat a hamburger. All of a sudden, out of nowhere, came Allie the Alligator!!!!
“AHHHH!” screamed Mr. Goblin. Allie said, “You can’t walk around me! If you try to walk around me, I will bite you with my giant, sharp teeth! Why don’t you see if you can pass me or I am going to chomp you up!” Mr. Goblin said, “Okay. How do I get around you?” Allie said, “You have to sing the magic song.”
Mr. Goblin and Mr. Snail said, “How about this?” They started to sing their song, but Ellie The Elephant came by. She had a secret. She had orange juice in her trunk. Allie stretched her trunk way up in the air, and she sprayed orange juice all over Allie the Alligator! “Ahhhh! You can’t spray me with orange juice! Orange juice makes me cough!” And Allie began to cough. And cough. And cough. And cough.
All of Mr. Goblin and Mr. Snail’s friends saw the trouble and began to join them around Allie. There was the yellow Monster Clown, Woody the Kitty, Kari Koala, and Mr. Bear. They all looked at Allie, and Mr. Goblin says, “Oh my, oh my, oh my. You are coughing and coughing and coughing all over me. We have to do something about this!”
And then, some clowns came by in their little yellow bus. The yellow Monster Clown said, “How about we call a doctor? The doctor can give Allie some cotton candy to stop this coughing!” Woody said, “I have some cotton candy to share!” Woody gave the cotton candy to Allie. Allie started to eat the cotton candy and it worked! Allie stopped coughing and said, “I am sorry I wouldn’t let you pass and I said I was going to chomp you up.” Mr. Goblin said, “That’s okay. We can all become friends. Let’s all go down the big slide together.”
So, they all climbed up the giant ladder to the top of the giant slide. They had so much fun racing down the slide. They rode the Ferris Wheel, the fire truck, the roller coaster that goes to the top of the hill, and the spinning bus. They had a lot of fun that day. They were all friends and they learned that when a friend is being mean, you have to help them and be their friend.
The End
We are participating in the National Novel Writing Month Youth Competition. It's still not too late for you to join in! If you don't want to participate, but want a great book that takes your child through the story writing process, I suggest you download the NaNoWriMo workbook. It's great! Have fun storywriting! We are going to publish this story with Kids Write Books for $29! You can view the website at www.kidswritebooks.com. (Yeah, it's a shameless plug...I'm the owner. Love ya'll! )
Read more...
Tuesday, November 17, 2009
Homeschool Techie 101: Getting Started
If you missed
So, The Snail's Trail is rolling out a new series...

Homeschool Techie 101! Whoo hoo! I hope you are excited!
Help me develop this program by
Who is this series for?
- Homeschoolers who don't use any technology at all.
- Homeschoolers who only use "old" technology (PowerPoint, Word, Excel, etc)
- Homeschoolers who are really tech savvy and love to piddle with geeky stuff
- Little Kids & Big Kids
- Girls & Boys
- Technology illiterate homeschoolers
- Homeschoolers looking for fun, new project-based learning ideas!
- Homeschoolers who want to learn how to demonstrate and apply knowledge and throw away those tests!
- Public School teachers who work in school districts that are stuck in 1994 and need ideas of how to
sneakintegrate technology into their classrooms.
What will Homeschool Techie 101 include?
- Project Based activities...your kids will complete projects based on what they are learning in their school
- New, Hot of the Press Technologies
- Tech advice, tips, and tricks for momma (because you know, she wants to trick out her blog)
- ...and more!
- Each activity will include three levels: beginners, intermediate, and advanced.
- Maybe some Homeschool Techie Awards?
- We will start simple, with the basics, and will move on up as we go on.
- Go ahead and add the badge to your blog (see it on the right?) so you can let people know you are a Homeschool Techie and start spreading the news. When we get farther along in our workshops, it will be more fun if a lot of kids are participating in the collaboration activities.
- Complete projects, blog about it, and link up with McLinky
- Collaborate on projects online with other homeschoolers in our secure environment (coming soon)
- ...and more ideas coming soon!
Help me develop this program by completing this form.
- A computer with internet access. (required)
- An gmail account (required to access Google applications and programs)
- An exciting, positive, team-player, ready-to-go, spirited attitude (required).
- A digital camera (optional)
- A digital camcorder or regular camcorder (optional)
- A printer (optional)
- A scanner (optional)
- A webcam (optional)
- A phone (the old-fashioned kind or cell) (optional)
- An gmail account (optional)
- A GPS device (optional)
- iTunes account and iPod/MP3 Player (optional)
- Skype (optional)
What about safety?
Don't worry, I have your kids safety in mind and I will begin our program with addressing safety issues. I do want to say that in the public school system, they typically fear technology because of a disproportionate view of technology, safety, and kids. The majority of school systems don't allow the use of emerging technologies (or even technologies from the late 90's) in the classroom. This has kept American students behind in technology compared to the rest of the world. We will use some collaborate tools (a wiki is one example) but all online tools will be private to participants (if available) and will be strictly monitored by all parents involved.
Do you want to skip to the head of the class?
Check out some of the tools we will be using:
Why do you need to participate?
If you personally don't think that you need to focus on technology in your homeschool, your first step is to watch these videos. It IS important to integrate technology into your homeschool and Homeschool Techie 101 is going to make it easy for you. If you don't guide your kids to technology literacy and competency, they will not be able to compete with, and participate in, society and the workplace when they graduate high school.
Before we begin the series, I want to let you know of the browser we endorse for kids. (I get no compensation to say this, I don't represent this company, and they didn't ask me to say this).
My kids use this browser called Kido'z. I love it because when they use the browser, they can't go clicking all over the internet and don't have access to my desktop. It also lets them find the websites they like without putting an address in the address bar. In fact, they can't access the address bar. You can block websites (I block nickjr/noggin because they have ads), add your own websites, and completely customize the browser based on what your kid needs. I will be honest with you. I feel that Kido'z is so safe, I let my kids play on the internet without complete direct supervision. (i.e. I don't have to stand over their shoulder). I suggest that Homeschool Techies use this browser, too. Sometimes we will use an internet based game or application. If I suggest something on the web, I suggest you allow your child to go through Kido'z.
Help me develop this program by completing this form. Read more...
The Future of Storytelling is REALLY COOL! +iPhone
Oh, wow. Just wow. Can you imagine the implications this could have in the classroom?
Monday, November 16, 2009
Friday, November 13, 2009
Are you blog frettin'? Ya'll please help me!
If you have been with my blog since it began 10 months ago, you have seen a billion changes. I am constantly blog frettin'! I am never happy with the layout or design. (It might be because I am addicted to design and HTML). I am never happy with the content. I am never happy with my purpose of blogging. And I am seriously stressing about it!
The evolution of my blog has been in many directions. When I first started blogging, I was just using it as an avenue to share what we did in our homeschool for my parents and sister who live far away. I was also using it to document our homeschool in case we ever had trouble with the local school system...you know, I would hate for someone to claim that we weren't doing anything but playing all day.
Then, I decided I would use my blog as an avenue for sharing my ideas for activities, lessons, and other stuff that I have learned along the way as a professional teacher. But always coming up with new ideas all the time became...well, it was pressure to perform. I didn't want my blog to go in that direction. I just can't handle the stress! My friend, Jolanthe, is a genius at it! Love her!
Then I decided that I would become one of those moms who write (non-homeschool) reviews, have giveaways, and have tons of sponsors all over my blog. Anyone remember that? I changed my blog design and added "Your Ad Here" all over the front page. Then I started to feel as if my blog was really tacky, only because I hate visual clutter. And now it seems that every single blogging mom is doing the product review, ads all over her blog, thing. I love these blogs but I wanted to be different. Sure, I am extremely saddened that a huge company isn't sending me a new washer and dryer to review. Sure, I am extremely saddened that a huge company isn't sending my family to Disney World for a free vacation. I also don't want to be the one giving away stupid stuff like a toilet plunger and aluminum foil because I HAVE to because the owners of the company will give me a couple of bucks.
So here I am now. I redesigned my blog, again (for like the 100th time) and I am trying to get to what I truly want...something minimally simple. Like my friend, Sherry, who is always simple and consistent. She is a genius, too! I want a blog that is easy to navigate. And I want to take the stress away for me of trying to "perform" for my readers by always providing AWESOME content. I want to just blog for myself. A way for me to preserve our homeschooling and family memories. Even if our life can be very boring. A way for me to occasionally share a great idea. A way for me to meet new friends, get homeschool mom support, and be involved in our little blog community.
I have been thinking about some new ideas. All of us in our blogging community pretty much have little kids and we all share little kid ideas. I want to start sharing something different. I have a Master's in Technology in Education and I honestly don't want it to go to waste. Because this degree costs me more than my house. Yes, seriously. So I am going to start sharing ideas of how you can use technology in your homeschool. This is going to be great for the little kids, those gifted kids, those geeky and nerdy kids, and those older homeschool kids...like my friend, Kris. We want to be like the Weird, Unsocialized Kids when we grow up!
What are your thoughts? Are you constantly frettin' over your blog? Are you tempted to be like the Jones mom and have an uber blog with sponsors, giveaways, and product reviews? Or do you want to keep your blog quaint and small? {The dictionary says that quaint means "Charmingly odd"...how perfect!}
What would you like to see for The Snail's Trail? What have you liked about us? What have you hated about us? What have you wanted me to keep or change? Thanks for helping me with this because I need to stop frettin' and keep on keepin' on.
Read more...
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)






























