And The Winners Are...TOS Homeschool Review Crew Product of the Year Awards

As the 2011-2012 Crew year comes to a close, we are once again presenting awards to our vendors. The awards are known as the TOS Homeschool Crew Blue Ribbon Awards.

The following vendors are the recipients of the award this year. 
Click on their name to check out the Crew reviews!

*Favorite Reading Instruction Product: Reading Eggs
Favorite Writing Product: Write Shop (we did not do this review)
*Favorite Language Arts Product: Progeny Press
*Favorite Social Studies Product: TruthQuest History
*Favorite Science Product: Amazing Science
*Favorite Math Product: Math Mammoth
*Favorite Online Math Product: Math Rider

*Favorite Foreign Language Product: Visual Latin
*Favorite Fine Arts Product: Artistic Pursuits
*Favorite Christian Education Product: Apologia: Who Am I?
*Favorite Preschool Product: Before Five in a Row
*Favorite Elementary Product: All About Reading
*Favorite Middle School Product: Write with WORLD
Favorite High School Product: Excellence in Literature
Favorite College or College-Prep Product: Excellence in Literature

*Best Online Resource: Reading Eggs
*Best e-Product: Heritage History
*Best Homeschool Resource: Apologia: Educating the Wholehearted Child
Best Book, Novel, or Magazine: Apologia: How to Have a HEART for Your Kids
Best Children's Book: Amazing Animals by Design (I'd have to say The Person I Marry...it is so sweet and I want all of my kids to know it by heart).

*Best Game or Toy: Northstar Games: Wits and Wagers and Say Anything
*Best Hands-On Resource: Pitsco Education
Best Resource I Didn't Know I Needed: eMeals (I said Time Timer ...it really has helped a LOT)
*Best Customer Service: K5 Learning
Most Adaptable Resource: Creek Edge Press
Most Family-Oriented Resource: Northstar Games: Wits and Wagers and Say Anything

*Kids' Choice (favorite of CHILDREN ages 0-12): Reading Eggs
Teens' Choice (favorite of the TEENAGERS): Pitsco Education (Tex said Critical Thinking Company's Balance Math)
All Around Crew Favorite: Visual Latin  

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Each winning vendor has received this wonderful award to display with pride:

Congratulations to our winning vendors! 

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What we have to say about the results:

Our favorite resources were the same as many of the same ones listed above (the choices marked with an asterix reflect same responses). I have indicated a few of our differences when we really felt strongly about the choices which were different. We might have felt differently because we did not try the product, or because it just wasn't a good fit for our family, but I think you can be confident that any product on this list is a really good one (and that is not saying that the ones that didn't win are not good products...these were just the most popular).

My favorite overall resource is (in my opinion) the best homeschooling book ever...Educating the Wholehearted Child. If you haven't read it yet, please check out my review of it, then order yourself (and a friend, a difficult relative, or an interested potential homeschooler) a copy. I think it will become one of your favorite home educating books, too, and it could really change your upcoming year for the better. I try to buy one "how to" homeschooling book each year, as I feel it really keeps our home education program dynamic.

Also, my kids' all around favorite for the year (which could not win even though it deserved to since only 20 of us received this AWESOME! product) was.......TOYDLE. Check out my two reviews (Toydle Part One and Toydle Part Two, then hop on over to their website and start saving up for one for your kids for Christmas. Your kids will thank you over and over and over again...

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Many Crew Members are blogging about these awards as well.

Click here to see what they have to say.

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Thank you for sailing with us this year. It has been a great one.

We will be continuing our voyage with the TOS Homeschool Review Crew through the summer, up until Thanksgiving, when the current crew year will official end. A new Crew year will start after New Year's Day, but next year, our family plans to "stay ashore" so we can focus on notebooking, developing a Heritage Children's Library, getting certified to foster/adopt, and fixing up the old homestead...not to mention lots of reading!!

 I hope you will stick around and keep checking for more reviews all summer...there are some good ones coming up!

Blessings,

Two Blog Awards for ME??

 

A very kind fellow blogger, The Adventurer over at Life’s Adventures, awarded me the Stylish Blogger award on my Blessings Pour Out blog. Wow!! Needless to say, I am thrilled by it, and want to say a HUGE “Thank You!” to her. Here it is: “Thank you!!”

I like to visit her blog because she travels, and I am currently doing a geography project with the kids called Where in the World? Wednesday. I just love the IDEA of travel, but other than an if-you-are-lucky trip to see relatives about once a year, I haven’t done much of it (though we did better on our trip planning this year and had quite an adventure!). Thus, I will live vicariously through others, and take “virtual trips” on the internet...at least until the kids get a bit older.

More recently, Lisa at the McClanahan Seven blessed me with the same award for my childrens’ blog, The Three Amigos Weekly Work. The Three Amigos are three of my kids: Ladybug, Cowboy, and Firefly. I guess we will have to change it to the Four Amigos in a few years when Baby Boo gets a bit older, but for now, the Three Amigos LOVE their blog and they use it each day to complete their schoolwork. Thank you very much to Lisa for the award! Please visit her and check out her cool scrapbooking room…I want one. Can your hubby come over and help my hubby install one next week?

Lastly, Phyllis over at All Things Beautiful blessed me with the Versatile Blogger Award also over at the Three Amigos site. Now, I never even expected anyone to go to that site, let alone to award it, so I was quite surprised…wow, and thank you!! I am going to display this award here since I AM the “versatile blogger”…I hope that is okay with her. I don’t really want to confuse the kids with a post about the awards on their school blog…but they are tickled pink that THEIR blog is so admired.  Thank you to all of you kind ladies. I feel very blessed.

I am honored to be one of the bloggers The Adventurer, The McClanahan Seven, and All Things Beautiful chose to bless when they passed on their awards, and now I get the opportunity to do the same.

Rules for accepting these award are:

1. Thank and link back to the person who gave you the award (I did this!)
2. Share 7 things about yourself (see below).
3. Pass this on to 15 other great bloggers you recently discovered (see below).
4. Contact the selected bloggers and tell them about their awards.

Here are seven things about myself:

1. I like the tradition of tea time. I prefer Earl Grey, though Lady Grey is a close second. I adore scones, or anything baked, and actually like to bake myself, though it seems there is not enough time or energy for me to do much baking these days. The kids would like to change that, for sure, and I am positive Hubby wouldn’t mind if I did more.
2. I love old movies, especially musicals and Fred Astaire films. Something about Fred’s twinkling smile and tapping feet makes me happy, and who can feel grim after singing along with the songs on the Sound of Music?
3. I try to read at least five “good” books a month. Usually those “good” books are non-fiction books about some topic I am interested in. You can see many of my previous months’ reading lists on the right sidebar.
4. When I graduated from high school, I was sure I was going to become a veterinarian. I even got accepted early to Virginia Tech with a (albeit small) scholarship and hoped to go to the vet school there. However, somewhere along the line, I realized I am too much of a softie to do the hard things that are included in the life of a vet (putting animals down…sometimes perfectly salvageable ones). So, I eventually got my teaching degree (both of my parents are teachers), and I am glad it worked out that way. I live out my love for animals by collecting them on our hobby farm. LOL.
5. I have to take two graduate courses this semester to maintain my teaching certification. I am NOT looking forward to all of the extra work, but the content looks interesting. Hubby and I have decided that the investment is worth it, since we have at least five children to graduate still (and you never know what else may come…>smiles!<) and keeping my certification current makes homeschooling easier in our state.
6. I like to rescue old quilts. I haven’t found the time to make one from scratch yet (or the motivation), but I do find time to sew up rips on bargain old ones I find at the flea markets. I got a yoyo quilt top from an antique store about a year ago, and I have recently learned to make yoyos in order to repair and restore it. I’d like to use it as a tablecloth under glass on my dining room table, but the glass is too expensive. Until I can afford the glass, I may hang it on a wall…if I can find room!
7. I may have said this before, but I LOVE BOOKS! I like old books and new books, red books and blue books, short ones and fat ones, dog ones and cat (in the hat) ones…Books are fun, books are great, books are something I appreciate. Go books! Get the picture?

Now, for the bloggers I would like to bless with these awards. Since both the Stylish Blogger Award and the Versatile Blogger Award called for blessing fifteen other bloggers, I combined the awards and am passing them both on to the same fifteen people. I am already delayed with posting this due to my health difficulties and limits on my time recently, so please forgive me if this seems a bit like cheating…(but I couldn’t find any rules that said I couldn’t do this anywhere online). I hope you understand.

Please visit some of these stylish and versatile blogs and leave a comment for their bloggers. I know they’d love to meet you!

1. Adventures in Unsell Land
2. Marine Corps Nomad
3. Mindful Ramblings
4. Household Ways
5. A Teaching Heart
6. Joy in Our Journey
7. Orange Marmalade Mama
8. Crazy Homeschool Mama
9. A Full Heart
10. A Mommy’s Adventures
11. Deanna’s Corner
12. Petra School
13. No Idle Bread
14. Mom Loves Books
15. To Be Busy at Home

Blessings,

Heather

Lovely Little Miss Sunshine

I would like to thank Denise, at Light, Liberty, and Learning for awarding me my first two blog awards. You all may think it is silly, but I was sooooo excited when she told me to check out her blog and see what she had for me, and I discovered these two awards. I am new to this and I really appreciate all of the encouragement I have recieved from many individuals. Thank you, everyone. Thank you, Denise!

Here are the rules for the awards presentation:

1. Thank the one who gave it to you and link to their blog.

2. Share seven things about yourself.

3. Choose seven others to bless with the award and let them know they've won an award.

 Here are seven blogs I enjoy that I feel reflect the

award titles of "One Lovely Blog" and "Sunshine Award."

Please visit them and offer them encouragement this week.

I am sure it will really make their day!

My Country Blog of This and That

Following Him Home

I Can't Decide

Large Family Mothering

The Cow Queen

Tumbleweed News

The Legacy of Home

Lastly, here are the seven things about myself. Maybe you will find them interesting. Maybe you won't. That's okay. I know my mother reads my blog and at least she will enjoy them!!

1. Speaking of my mother, I have the coolest, most wonderful parents in the world. Did you know that they came over yesterday on a 100 degree plus day and my dad helped Hubby mow our lawn (ahem, maybe lawn is not the right word since the mowable areas are over five acres worth). Mom helped me make my blueberry jam, helped keep the kids occupied on a day when it was too hot to go outside, AND made dinner and pie for dessert. They are truly awesome folks. Thank you both. I love you guys!

2. I LOVE to read. I collect books. I have LOTS of books, and many overflowing bookshelves (but not enough...shelves that is.) I probably have enough books for two libraries, but that won't stop me from finding more books I want at the next library sale! Seriously, before we moved from Florida I donated over one thousand books to the library (really, I am NOT exaggerating) and did not even make a dent in them. It is an addiction, I think. Help?

3. Random thought: my favorite movie is Willie Wonka and the Chocolate Factory (the original version with Gene Wilder). Strange, but true. It's one of the only movies I will actually watch more than once. The Sound of Music and Fiddler on the Roof are two more.

4. I am the designated photo archivist for my family. That means that for every 100 pictures of my kids, there is one of me. That's okay, I like the pictures of them better than the ones of me anyway.

5. By the time I was sixteen, I saved up enough money to buy my first horse. Actually, the deal with my parents was 50/50, so they paid half, but they also contributed to the tack 50/50, and a few other things, so if you consider the total amount, I can tell myself I bought the horse and they paid for the stuff. He was a full-blooded Arabian gelding, a Bask grandson, a beautiful blood bay, smart as a whip, and he loved to jump. So did I. I still miss him. We could complete an entire course of 3-4 foot jumps with no tack (bareback and bridleless) cantering like the wind and carefree as summertime. These days when I ride I rarely go above a trot. When did I become such an old fogie?

6. I am seriously a Pepper. No Coke or Pepsi for me, though occassionally I do the Dew. One of these days I will go green and only drink water, but I am not looking forward to that day at all.

7. I am blessed to be the mom to six of the coolest kids on the planet. They are so sweet and bring me such joy every single day in so many ways. I can't say enough about how thankful I am to have such wonderful and amazing children. I am so glad we homeschool so we can spend most of every day together. Thank you, Hubby for working so hard to make that possible. I would hate to miss all the incredible moments of their lives that I am blessed to experience by being at home with them. Thank you, Jesus, for blessing us all so very much!

This was fun. I hope you had fun, too. Now go and be a blessing to someone today the way these awards were a blessing to me (I am still smiling...thanks, Denise).

Blessings to you,

Heather