2009 Homeschool Blog Awards

The 2009 Homeschool Blog Awards are OPEN!!

Click the button to go to the polls!

The Homeschool Post is hosting the 5th Annual Homeschool Blog Awards!

Feel free to snag it if your blog is listed in our voting polls (Just right click and save to your computer, then upload it to your blog/graphics hosting site). If you aren’t in the polls but would like to participate in the fun and get the word out, please take the button on our sidebar that changes as we have awards and all through the year. It updates on your sidebar so you don’t have to worry with seasonal changes. We do all the work for you!

OCT 17 – Prize page up
OCT 19 – Nominations begin
OCT 30 – Nominations end
NOV 9 – Voting begins
NOV 20 – Voting ends
NOV 23 – Winners announced
Winners have 1 week to email their information
DEC 11 – Info emailed to prize awarders
JAN 30 – Prizes awarded by

10-10-09… If you are wanting to advertise on the site and you don’t have a button, our lovely Darcy will make you a 125×125 box (like the button above) for free! What a bargain!

10-19-09… NOMINATIONS are under way. Do not use our contact form to email us nominations. Please go see our nominations post and use the nominations FORM. Your entries will be automatically inserted in our nomination spreadsheet and finalists will be named in November.

11-9-09… Voting will begin a day late and the contest will be extended one day (so that you get the same amount of time to cast your votes).

11-10-09… Voting began. Click the top button or the button we added to the sidebar to go cast your votes!

11-12-09… Updates were made to the Voting Page (answers to your questions from various emails we have gotten), the Legal Page (dates of contest, links to other pages), and this page (this update section and the nominee button).

While our site brings encouragement and and great parenting and homeschool-related content to the web all year round, we especially enjoy rewarding our fellow community bloggers during the annual awards season. We are partnering with some wonderful homeschool-friendly products and services to bring our winners prizes and introduce the homeschool community to a whole world of excellent blogs. Be watching for our prize page to pop up so you can see what the winner loot will be!

For those of you who haven’t been a part of the blog awards before (and I’m sure there are a lot of you since blogs tend to multiply and many don’t have a long shelf-life), here are a few FAQs about the Homeschool Blog Awards that you might not know:

1. There are 25 categories (see below) and we’ll have that many winners. Not all categories will win the same prizes.

2. You can nominate yourself and you can even vote for yourself. We won’t tell.

2. Authors of this site (whose faces you see on the sidebar) are not eligible to win the awards, nor can the collaborative sites they write on if there are more than one Homeschool Post author writing on the site. Blogs that are nominated must abide by simple rules – to be stated when nominations begin – but the main rule is that the blogs must be ‘family friendly’.

5. This year, to make it easier to manage votes and make sure all is fair, we might require a brief registration. This will be decided as the polling begins – and depends entirely on whether there’s a great new poll widget for the new version of Word Press or not. If we do require this, it will be as easy and painless as leaving a comment.

6. You can purchase ad space on the site or offer prizes to the winners. If you are a homeschool entrepreneur, or have a home-based business, you can buy an inexpensive ad to go on the sidebar of The Homeschool Post or offer your products to one or all of the category winners. Just email us for more details if you are interested. All money made goes to site maintenance, design, hosting, and hopefully a small gift certificate to reward my awesome authors for all their hard work they do on this site year-round (especially since they all have great blogs and are not able to win).

7. If this is your first time visiting the Homeschool Post, please don’t just stick around for the awards. We’re here ‘encouraging, informing and connecting’ with the homeschool community all year long. Not to mention we offer give-aways every month. You can even guest post here! Shoot us a comment to find out how.

8. You can subscribe to our feed by email and join our facebook page on the sidebar so you don’t miss out on important updates during the awards season (and all year long). You can also follow @hsbapost on twitter.

9. Check out our legal page for specifics on the rules of the contest (we’ll be updating it with 2009 links very soon), and you can check out our About page and the individual bios of our authors to find out more about who we are here at the Homeschool Post. We even have a page dedicated to our past blog winners for 2005, 2006, 2007, and 2008. You’ll find a lot of great blogs there – and that’s what the awards are about – getting us connected to all the great homeschool blogs on the net.

10. Check back here at THIS post for updates (see update section above) that pertain to the awards and link to THIS post for the awards season to share information. We’ll be compiling all of the information you need here so you’ll only be one click away from everything awards-related.

The only difference in the categories this year is that we separated unschooling and ecclectic, since not every ecclectic homeschooler is an unschooler. [Thanks, Beth, for the suggestion.] Be taking notes as you surf the web and make a list of your favorite bloggers that fit these descriptions below. You’ll be able to nominate them together – all in one comment – when we open nominations on October 19th!

2009 Homeschool Blog Award Categories:

1. Best Homeschool Mom Blog
Everyone is the best homeschool mom for their own children. With thousands of homeschool bloggers out there, please know that there will only be one winner online – but EACH OF US are winners in our own homes. If there’s a blogging mom out there that has been a particularly good example to you and you want to let her know… consider her for this nomination! [Her blog does not have to be exclusively about motherhood or homeschooling.]

2. Best Homeschool Dad Blog
We love to hear what dad has to say. Especially if he includes homeschool posts off and on. [Blog doesn’t have to be exclusively about homeschooling.]

3. Best Blog Design
Here’s your chance to nominate your favorite blog design and give your favorite blogger a pat on the back for her talent (or give her web designer some credit!).

4. Best Photos and Artistic Content Blog
This blogger has an eye-catching and interesting variety of graphics and photos in posts and in the general design that you enjoy. We want to thank those of you who post pictures and graphics that inspire us!

5. Best Crafts, Plans & Projects Blog
Do you turn to the blogosphere for a steady supply of great craft ideas, lesson plans or projects that you can do with your homeschoolers? Why not share your favorite how-to blogs that provide us with things to be inspired by and ideas to use with our kids and in our homes.

6. Best Family or Group Blog
Nominate your favorite Homeschool Family blog or your favorite group blog that is either run by Homeschoolers or discusses homeschool issues. [Blog doesn’t have to be exclusively about homeschooling. Remember that if more than one of our authors are part of the group blog, it is not qualified to win.]

7. Best Encourager
It is time to say thanks to those bloggers out there who lift you up out of the homeschool “blahs” and help you get back on track. The winner of this category doesn’t have to be perfect or always in a good mood… just someone who makes you feel as if someone else cares and has a positive attitude overall.

8. ‘Live-What-You-Believe’ Homeschool Blog
A large percentage of homeschoolers are Christians, but this doesn’t have to mean Christianity only. Other religions or even strictly secular homeschool blogs can be nominated here. The person just has to do a good job marrying their beliefs with their posts on homeschooling… and inspiring others to do the same. I for one am thankful that we live in a land that is FREE to worship (or not) any way we see fit… and to homeschool our kids accordingly.

9. Best Unschooling Blog
Life and learning go hand in hand. There are a lot of different unschooling methods, but all of them are adamant about not being tied in to a traditional school method. What unschooling blog provides you with encouragement in your own unschooling journey?

10. Best Eclectic Homeschooling
Not every eclectic homeschooler is an unschooler. Yet there are a lot of us out there who are unique in our approach to learning and beat to our own drum. Nominate your favorite colorful, mix-matched curricular mama.

11. Best Geographical Blog
You can nominate a blog from ANY geographical place that you find interesting. If you are interested in a blog in Russia, Romania, Canada, Turkey, New Zealand, Texas or Washington D.C. – and your favorite blogger from that area talks a bit about that place in-between homeschool posts, PLEASE let us know! Be sure to let us know when you nominate the Best Geographical Blog that you TELL us WHERE the place is!

12. Best Current Events, Opinions or Politics Blog
We don’t want a strictly political blog that is run by a homeschooler unless quite a few posts have relevant information pertaining to homeschooling. News clips that affect our freedoms as homeschoolers and how homeschooling is portrayed in the media are ideal. We love to hear what other homeschool teachers are thinking and reading and their views on things that affect us all. [This blog does not have to be exclusively about homeschooling, current events, or politics… just a blog that often shares opinions on matters that you enjoy learning from.]

13. Best Homemaking or Recipes Blog
This blog should have content regarding homemaking, housekeeping, tips, ideas for making your life easier, information about raising multiple kids, or recipes that you enjoy trying. [This person should be a homeschooler but the blog doesn’t have to be exclusively about homeschooling, homemaking or recipes.]

14, 15, 16. Best Teen Girl Blog, Teen Guy Blog, Teen Group Blog
Let’s encourage those young bloggers to speak up and be a good example for their peers. I have seen so many wonderful teen blogs out there that deserve recognition. Let us know what some of your favorites are! Teen blogs can be any blogs run by teens who are at least 12 years of age. The winners will have to submit permission slips signed by their parents – see legal page at HSBA for more details. [This blog does not have to be exclusively about homeschooling, but homeschooling should be mentioned often or it should be obvious from the template that the teen is a homeschooler.]

17. Funniest Homeschool Blog
We all need a laugh in-between laundry, lesson plans and losing our cool. It is nice to get your smile back so you can share it with your students (who can only take “so much gloom” as Ma Walton said so eloquently on Little House on the Prairie). Nominate your favorite crack-pot or crack-up homeschool blog here.

18. Best Cyber-Buddy Blogger
A blogger that you haven’t met, but you think you would enjoy meeting and hanging out with. She/he is a person that you would love to co-op with or live next door to. Who knows, maybe one day we will get together somewhere at a blog conference!?

19. Best Curriculum or Business Blog
Let us know your favorite homeschool business or curriculum blogs so we can read them, too!

20. Best Variety
This blogger is one that could fit in any of these categories … but they just can’t be pinned down in ONE. This type of blogger is the ADD hyper-focused type… always moving on from one thing to the next… and always keeping you interested in coming back for more!

21. Best Thrifty Homeschooler
Most of us are homeschooling on a shoe-string. Nominate your favorite money-saving blogger so you can share her tips with the blogosphere and bless a bunch of homeschool children in the process! [Blog doesn't have to be exclusively about frugality.]

22. Best SUPER-HOMESCHOOLER
Ever feel like a looser after reading someone else’s lesson plans, seeing their field trip photos, listening to them talk about what they got done today, or seeing pictures of their children’s accomplishments? You were probably feeling the effects of visiting a SUPER-HOMESCHOOLER’s blog. These are the A-list homeschool parents that just BLOW YOU AWAY with their enthusiasm. We all have our good days, but this blogger has us all beat.

23. Best Nitty-Gritty Homeschool Blog
Since we included a category for the Super-Homeschooler… I figured we would add one in for the homeschooler who is brutally honest and open about her mistakes and failures. These are the moms that make you feel better and let you know that it is OK that we aren’t perfect. What would we do without them???

24. Best NEW Homeschool Blog
It is hard making a name for yourself in the blogosphere. A lot of times, you feel as if you are writing and no one is out there. If you have stumbled upon a great new blogger who has a lot of potential and you want to share them with the rest of us… please consider nominating them for this category! [A new blog is one that appeared on the scene during or after last awards season.]

25. Best Homeschooling Methods Blog
There are a lot of methods used to homeschool. Not all of them fit nicely in to eclectic or unschooling. Those two types won’t be considered for this award, so branch out and share some of your ‘other’ favorites! Make sure you tell us what TYPE of method this blog showcases so we can list it on the voting page!

Now get your thinking caps on so you can dazzle us with your 2009 nominations! Oh… and SPREAD THE WORD!

Love in Him,