It's all gouda: I'd like to thank the academy ....

Tuesday, July 15, 2008

I'd like to thank the academy ....

Wow! Wow! Wow! I'm humbled to receive my very first award from Pam at For The Love of Cooking. Thank you Pam! Your blog is wonderful, and I check it daily! Hope you have a great reunion this week!

The award originated in Uruguay, and is given for creativity and design, see http://arteypico.blogspot.com/ for more information.

Here are the rules that accompany this award.

1. Choose 5 blogs that you consider deserving of this award for their creativity, design, interesting material, and their contribution to the blogging community.

2. Each award has to have the name of the author and a link to his/her blog.

3. Each award winner has to show the award and put the name of and link to the blog that presented her/him with the award.

4. The award winner and the one who has given the prize has to show the link of Arte Y Pico blog so everyone will know the origin of this award.

5. Show these rules.

Boy oh boy, it certainly is not easy to pick just five blogs! There are soooo many great ones out there that I'm inspired by! I have so many favorites and I really struggled to name just five, but here it goes in no particular order...

Marjie at Modern Day Ozzie and Harriet because I secretly think she's Wonder Woman. She bakes almost daily, sews like the wind, and thinks nothing of whipping up dinner for 11. Oh yeah, and she homeschools and helps run a family business. Her food posts are great because she presents entire family pleasin' meals, and her day-in-the-life entries are so enjoyable to read. She's thoughtful, funny, and great friend, too.
Pam at Sidewalk Shoes because she's a great teacher in more ways than one. A teacher in real life, she also does an amazing job teaching great recipes on her blog. I've used her recipes more than once, always with great results. I enjoy her writing style and the photos she posts make you want to reach through the screen for a bite. Plus, she's a fellow cat lover. :-)
Rachelle from Craft Rage because her blog writing makes me laugh uncontrollably. Seriously. This award is not limited to cooking blogs, and Rachelle's blog contains excerpts from her life. There are two entries, dated 5/14/08 and 6/24/08, that made me laugh so hard I thought I'd need oxygen.
Homesick Texan is a terrific blog with stunning food photography and great recipes. Check out her July 8th entry for Carnitas. It will make you homesick for Texas, too!
Karina from Gluten Free Goddess because she has taught me sooo much about the limitless recipes for those following Gluten Free diets. Her site is easy to navigate and the recipes are wonderful.

5 comments:

CraftRage said...: Wow! I'm thrilled and flattered to be included in this list! Thank you so much, and also, thanks for the recipe for Santa Fe Stew!; July 15, 2008 at 11:16 AM
K Allrich said...: Thank you for including my blog in your five blog choices. And congrats! :); July 15, 2008 at 1:23 PM
Marjie said...: Me? Artsy? Creative? Here and I thought I was just a garden variety lunatic. Thanks, Paula; and how's your son's eye? Too bad we weren't close enough for my boys to have come to entertain him!; July 15, 2008 at 2:38 PM
La Bella Cooks said...: A big congratulations on a very well deserved award! I love your site and visit each day. Enjoy your award!; July 15, 2008 at 6:57 PM
pam said...: Paula - congrats on your award, and thank you so much for offering one to me! I'm hugely flattered!; July 16, 2008 at 8:23 AM

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Homeschool Tips and Tools: 2010

Bananagrams! Not too long ago, my kids and I discovered a great new game called Bananagrams. Far more fast paced and loads easier to play than Scrabble, this game requires only a table top and kids to get the fun underway. Better yet, adults and kids of all ages can play together. The playing pieces come packaged in a delightful, banana colored and shaped, zippered cloth pouch. It's free formed fun, and great entertainment for the entire family.

From a homeschooling perspective, it's a great tool to segue into creative writing or story telling. My kids create their own Bananagram "puzzle" and then use the words they created to write or tell an impromptu story. Silly or serious, all type of stories are encouraged!

The book titled English from the Roots Up by Joegil K. Kundquist has rapidly become one of my favorite resources for building a strong vocabulary base for my children. This spiral bound book provides both Latin and Greek word roots that provides students with tools to help them determine word meanings. I absolutely love it, and the rapid results that I see in my children are amazing. This is way better than a spelling program; by studying word roots, my children are gaining a much broader understanding of language and the power of words. The lessons are very easy to administer, short in duration, and my kids enjoyed them.

On the writing frontier, there is a book called Story Starters, Helping Children Write Like They've Never Written Before by Karen Andreola that provides writing prompts in the form of partially written stories for children to complete. While I found the book to be just ok, my children love it. I read the partially written story aloud, and they write the rest. The kids really enjoyed doing this as each of them looked forward to hearing the other's completed versions. This ended up being a great experience as the kids really wanted to impress their siblings with their version, and thus put more effort into their writing.

And for the grammar enthusiast lurking inside your student, here's a great book that explains how to diagram sentences. Diagraming Sentences by Deborah White Broadwater is a 46 page workbook complete with an answer key, and is perfect for your middle schooler.

Does your student embrace Science? Do you need quality supplies to conduct more in depth experiments at home? Check out Home Science Tools. I'm very impressed with the quality of the products we just ordered. Beakers, flasks, stirring rods, thermometers, chemicals, safety equipment, and so much more can be found and ordered on their website. www.homesciencetools.com . The items we received were top quality, the customer service rep was super, and the items were extremely well packed and delivered as promised. Look out Bill Nye ... future scientists in the house!

Lapbooking and Notebooking are buzz words in the homeschool community. Here are two great resources for incorporating those strategies into your learning curriculum. Big Book of Books by Dinah Zike and The Ultimate Lap Book Handbook by Tammy Duby and Cyndy Regeling helped me enhance our homeschooling experience using lapbooks. The content found in these books enabled me to teach a group of homeschool mom's how to incorporate lapbooking into their curriculums. You'll want to laminate your copies as they will get pulled off the shelf over and over again.