Blog carnivals became popular a few years ago, but most lost steam (and participants) as the novelty wore off. But not the Carnival of Homeschooling. Check out this list of education-related carnivals. Many have not published a new edition in months. Yet, of those still in the game, most are not as old as the Carnival of Homeschooling.

Who gets credit for this? First of all, the Cate family, who initiated the Carnival of Homeschooling and organized it so that, week after week, other bloggers could sponsor a weekly edition using a template, so to speak, set up by the Cates. (I was so happy to have a post in the first edition.)

Also, we have to give credit to the many, many bloggers who live the homeschool lifestyle and are willing to share regular little peeks into their lives so that other homeschoolers (and potential homeschooling parents doing research) can benefit from their experiences and advice.

I write books about homeschooling. So do many other homeschooling parents. We’ve worked hard and I think we publish some pretty helpful books. But I always recommend to new and prospective homeschoolers that, in addition to reading books about homeschooling, they visit the Carnival of Homeschooling. Surfing through the various editions of the past as well as the current Carnival will give you a very wide-ranging, informative and true-life look at the homeschooling life. As they used to say in the old Bell Telephone commercials (I’m dating myself here), “it’s the next best thing to being there.”