The Homeschool Blog Awards are COMPLETE!!
This post was your one-stop update to all the news about the awards throughout the awards season. If you are a vendor, check out our prize section. If you are a homeschool blogger this is the post to bookmark from now through December to keep you in-the-know about the goings-on of the Homeschool Blog Awards. We have a little for everyone in this post to make keeping up with the awards easier!
Right below this intro is our ‘Update’ section to notify everyone of the latest awards season news:
October 15 – Nominations have begun! Hurry and click over to the nominations page!
October 15 – The mystery 20th category is named: “Best Homeschool Nature Blog” (thanks for your Facebook suggestions)
October 30 – Nominations ended. Thanks for your participation!
November 7 – Voting begins a day late! Click the button on the sidebar to go vote!
November 8 – Ironing out some minor details with disqualified nominations and errors on our part. Let us know if you find any dead links, blogs that do not fit their category or do not meet requirements.
November 19 – Voting ends at midnight.
November 22 – Winners announced! Each winner has until the end of the month to claim their prizes officially and get us the info we need for the vendors to mail/email their prizes to them. If they do not meet this requirement, the prize and title will go to the runner up in their category.
Wanting to get instant graphic updates about the awards? Put our button code in your blog’s sidebar (Just copy the code over there on the right hand sidebar –> and paste it in to your blog’s template or post). We change the button for nominations and voting to notify everyone so they can come back to participate. Our button changes to a generic “Homeschool Post” button again when awards are finalized; so if you already have us in your sidebar, you’re one step ahead of the game – and sure to be the first to know about the awards NEXT year!
SEPT 17 – Prize page up (but we’ll be adding to it as they come in!)
OCT 15 – Nominations begin
OCT 30 – Nominations end
NOV 6 – Voting begins
NOV 17 – Voting ends
NOV 19 – Winners announced
*Winners have until Nov 30 to email us claiming prizes and giving us shipping info*
DEC 1 – Info emailed to prize awarders
JAN 15 – Prizes shipped
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 20 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.
3. 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’.
4. 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.
5. 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.
6. 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.
7. Check out our legal page for specifics on the rules of the contest (we’ll be updating it with 2010 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, 2008… and soon we’ll move 2009 to that page as the new winners emerge. 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. [As always, if you find a dead link to a dead blog - be sure to let us know. Sadly, that does happen over time.]
8. 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.
We have multiple prize pages. At the bottom of each page there’s a link to go to the next one! Be sure to visit them all! Better yet – click over to see the vendor’s sites and get to know them even better. We are thrilled that they value homeschoolers and homeschool bloggers!
Handy Link to Prize Page 1
As you can see at the bottom of this post, we love our sponsors! We have a special PDF put together for companies and individuals who would like to offer prizes for the awards. Just send us a note at our email address (hsbawards @ gmail . com) and we’ll get the details out to you.
Here are the ways you can partner with the Post:
- You can purchase ad space on the site (we have a buy 1 month, get 1 free deal going on right now)
- You can offer prizes to the winners (and get your name on our sidebar for the year, get mentioned in a post, and have the gratitude of a bunch of fabulous bloggers)
- You can spread the word about the awards or get together with other bloggers and go in together to award a prize (some of our prize awarders are other homeschool bloggers just like you… and last year Sprittibee’s AUNT offered a prize she made herself)
You don’t have to have 20 prizes to participate. You can offer only ONE prize to ONE category winner if you want. It is all up to you. We do have a small vendor fee for our prize awarders, and all money made from our meager fees for the awards 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).
To make it easier on our prize awarders and to simplify the awards, we have narrowed the categories down to 20. There are a few categories that are gone, some have changed names, and others have been merged. Please read through the descriptions carefully and make sure that you give us ALL the information required (if you nominate someone in the methods category, you MUST tell us what homeschooling method the blog advocates). Be taking notes as you surf the web from now until nominations begin and make a list of your favorite blogs that fit these descriptions below. You’ll be able to nominate them together – all in one comment – when we open nominations on October 15th!
2010 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
This blogger has photographic talent and makes her posts pop with eye-candy. We want to thank those of you who post pictures and graphics that inspire us! The winner of this category will be one that takes her own photos – not someone who only uses stock images.
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. THIS BLOG MUST HAVE MULTIPLE AUTHORS.]
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. 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.]
9. 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.]
10. Best Teen 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/s are homeschoolers.]
11. 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 The Waltons television series). Nominate your favorite crack-pot or crack-up homeschool blog here.
12. Best Special Needs Blogger
These are the moms that have the extra challenges – they go above and beyond to help their children succeed. We have had so many requests to add this category that we not only added a category for you, but we also added a new author who is a special-needs advocate: Miss Tammy! Say Hello to her by stopping by her bio/blog link in our sidebar!
13. Best Curriculum or Business Blog
Let us know your favorite homeschool business or curriculum blogs so we can read them, too!
14. 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!
15. 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.]
16. 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.
17. 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???
18. 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.]
19. Best Homeschooling Methods Blog
There are a lot of methods used to homeschool. Are you a boxed curriculum gal? A Classical homeschooler? An unschooler? Do you thrill on Unit Studies or spend time outdoors doing Charlotte Mason-type nature walks? Are you a mixture of everything (eclectic)? Make sure you tell us what TYPE of method this blog showcases so we can list it on the voting page!
20. New Category!
We are currently working on the ‘mystery category’ and will announce it soon – join our facebook page and get in on the discussion and suggestions!
Now get your thinking caps on so you can dazzle us with your 2010 nominations! Oh… and SPREAD THE WORD: You can do so by blogging about, linking to, tweeting about, facebooking about, and social bookmarking this post!
WE LOVE OUR SPONSORS (This is a list of our current 2010 prize awarders! Please visit them as a thank-you for their generous participation!)
{ 26 comments… read them below or add one }
Wow! This is exciting. I wasn’t aware there was such a thing.
I’ve posted your button on my sidebar. And I’ll be keeping up!
Blessings,
Becky C
Woo hoo!!! Just posted about it to help spread the word. So much fun last year {and SO incredibly blessing}! Thanks so much for the work you all do behind the scenes to pull this together for us all!
This is fantastic. I have posted the information on the newsletter I send out to the yahoo group for homeschool families. I am praying one of the 2 members of our group that I know have a blog will win. That would be so great.
Jackie
Thanks for spreading the word. We are excited here, too – we started working on this in August this year behind the scenes to make things flow as smooth as possible. Praying that we all have a very rewarding and blessed award season for all!
Just spread the word on my blog.
Really looking forward to it
Got the button up on my blog!
In your blurb about category 11 (which people should really think about nominating my blog for) you attributed a quote from Little House on the Prarie to Ma Walton. Was there a Ma Walton in LHOP? I know there was a Ma Walton on another period family show. I think it was called the Waltons. I think you may have meant Ma Ingalls. I have only seen the TV show LHOP, so it is possible Ma Walton is in the books. However, I spoke with my 11 year-old LHOP literature specialist, and she remembers no such character. Educate us or correct your mistake, whicever you deem best.
The Waltons was a TV show and Ma Walton is who I attributed the quote to. Consider yourself edumakated.
The blurb currently reads “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.”
My point is you attributed to Ma Walton from the show Little House on the Prarie. I am merely suggesting you correct your blurb to read “as Ma Walton said so eloquently on The Waltons.”
This sounds really fun! Looking forward to participating!
What about an unschooling category? I really liked that there was one last year!!
This category has been revamped and is now listed as Best Methods. We felt that it wasn’t the best choice to have one particular method, yet not include others. If we were to head down that path, it would open a can of worms, so we just changed it to Best Method. You can definitely nominate your favorite unschooling blogger there.
Hello, can you tell me where the nominations page is? I can’t seem to find it anywhere on your site lol.
Thank you…
The nomination link is on the nomination post… but let me add it to this one just to be sure there’s no confusion!
Thanks.
Just discovered you today! Can’t wait to participate! I’m new to blogging this year and have been so impressed by how many great homeschool blogs there are!
I am blogging about it on my family and homeschool blog. Thanks for the work you put into this
Blessings to all of you!
Jill
homeschool blog is http://www.schoolhisway.blogspot.com
Got the button up on my sidebar and posted about it, too!
so cool! thanks for the opportunity to vote for my favorite blogs and totally put myself in there too
Where is the list of all of the nominees? I’d love to check them out
I’ve been following “Meader Family of Five”… for a long time… by Yvonne Meader.. it’s Great!
so just how DOES one vote? how DOES one see who is nominated? am I blind, I just don’t see it?
Looking forward to learning the results!
So…the winners were announced I guess, but I don’t know where! I missed it in all the holiday hubbub I guess. So sad…
Yes they were and you can find them here: http://hsbapost.com/2010/11/22/winners-of-the-6th-annual-homeschool-blog-awards/
Hi Please forward site of reputable/easy blogging advice for starter/future-blogger- Thank you for great site!
I love the awards and visiting as many of the blogs as I can–it’s fun to see what info everyone is sharing. Thanks for putting this on–it has got to be a tremendous amount of work!
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