Tomorrow is Michigan's primary and I must say that it has been years since I have seen so much interest in politics and the process of electing our public officials. Maybe it is due to the fact that Michigan is undergoing a one state recession and losing jobs and businesses at an alarming rate.
   Our oldest will be eligible to vote in this November's election and we have been learning a lot about politics and the process of electing our state and federal officials. There are many interesting articles and forums featuring information on all of the candidates, and of course since several of them are busy campaigning in the State there have been various occasions to participate in rallies.
   We are open to debating facts within our family regarding candidates but we have 3 rules we all agree to follow:
1) ALWAYS VOTE! This is a privilege, not an option.
2) No negative or smear remarks. Do your research and provide just the facts.
3) Vote your conscious, vote for who YOU feel would be the best for the position (whether it is a local school board election, or the Presidential election), do not be swayed by family or friends.
  It will be an interesting day tomorrow, we will be watching the polls closely to see how this primary stacks up against past primaries. Romney and McCain are in a statistical dead heat currently, but McCain won this state back in 2000 and still has a large group of followers and several big name endorsements.
   12 hours until the polls open, like the boys are so fond of saying: "Let the games begin!"

Core Knowledge Lesson Plans - This is a great site for lesson plans. The lesson plans at this website were submitted by teachers. All the lessons plans go up to Grade 8. They are organized by grade level and subject.

Discovery Channel School - This site is one of my favorites as it has a huge database of lesson plans and resources whice are organized by grade.

Gateway to Educational Materials - This particular website is known as GEM. It contains a searchable database of links to other collections of educational materials on the web. You can search by keyword, grade, or subject

• Geography
• Mathematics
• History
• Science and Technology
• Language Arts
• Social Studies

I thought it would be fun to take a look at some homeschooling statistics.  The list that I have compiled comes from many different sources.  All you have to do is click on the link next to each statistic group to read more information.  Let's take a look.

Christian Home Educators of Colorado

*Based on a study by Rudner, 8th graders who are homeschooled are performing approximately four grades above the national average.

*Homeschooling families average a spending of $450.00 per year.

*Approximately 70% of homeschoolers attend religious services.

*On standardized testing, homeschoolers average in the 87 percentile, while public school peers average in the 61 percentile in reading (white).

*On standardized testing, homeschoolers average in the 87 percentile, while public school pers average in the 49 percentile in reading (minority).

Heart of Wisdom

*Approximaely 18% of homeschooling families earn <$25,000 annually.

*Approixmately 44% of homeschooling families earn $25,000 +/- $49,000 anually.

National Home Education Research Institute

*African American parents that are homeschooling as increased from 85,000 to 105,000.

*Home-based education is growing around the world.

*There are approximaely 2 million children being homeschooled in the U.S.

*The most common reasons for choosing to homeschool include:

     -  Ability to teach a certain set of values and beliefs
     -  To accomplish more academically than can be done in a school setting
     -  To customize curriculum for particular learning styles
     -  Ability to provide a safer environment for children
     -  Ability to enhance family relationships

*Homeschool students are being recruiting by more colleges than ever before.

I think this is outstanding proof that homeschooling is not only a viable option for teaching our children, but perhaps the best way to teach them.  Being a Christian homeschooling mom, I cannot let the opportunity pass to let you know what the Bible has to say about parents teaching their children:

"Train a child in the way he should go, and when he is old he will not turn from it." Proverbs 22:6 ~ NIV

A brand new site is in the neighborhood, and it helps track yours. Using United States census data, ZIPskinny allows you to type in any zip code in the United States, and a neat profile comes up on your community. Everything from how much land to how many High School graduates live around you. When I typed in my zip code for instance, I found out that only 5.5% of our residents have bachelors degrees.

The uses for this in home-schooling is endless. My daughter was reading about the Jena 6, in Jena, Louisiana. To help compare what kind of town or city it was, compared to her own city, she typed in Jena's zip code and our own using the comparision chart provided by ZIPskinny, here are some important things she found out:

• Jena has 43 people per square mile, we have 4891 people per square mile
• Jena has less High School graduates, but more 4 year college graduates than we do
• Jena's populations consists of 61% married persons compared to our 49%
• Jena has people making incomes of $10,000 or less at 20%, compared to 7.6% in our area
• Jena has 82% white population, we have 92.5%
• Jena has 15.5% black population, we have 2.6%

All this information together, helped paint a picture in my daughter's head on what the city of Jena is like. She used the information to help her understand the stats behind the story. Children understand what life in their own community is like, and are able to better compare when reading about other communities.

You can compare up to 20 zip codes to get an even broader picture of whatever it is you are working on.

Bookmark ZIPskinny for any future lesson plans or current events you will be working on. Or just use it to find out some useful facts about the city or town you live in.

Homeschooling is a growing trend. In fact, statistics indicated that it is the fastest growing form of education. It is estimated that 2.1 million children were being homeschooled in 2003. The number of homeschoolers is on the rise, growing 7% to 15% per year, according to Dr. Brian Ray, president of the National Home Education Research Institute.

    Why is homeschooling becoming so popular? It probably has something to do with the fact that homeschooled students, or their parents, can set their own schedule. If a student, or parent decides that they want school to get out in April, then they can double up their efforts and get finished when they so choose.
    The popularity could also have something to do with the fact that homeschoolers are generally better socialized. This may come as a shock, because it seems ironic, however, Thomas Smedley, a graduate student at Radford University of Virginia, wrote a master's thesis indicating otherwise. He says that homeschoolers are, in general, better socialized than public-schoolers. Homeschoolers are usually more sociable around people that are not their age, both adults and young children. This has given homeschoolers a unique advantage when interviewing with prosepective employers.
    Lastly, homeschoolers, on average, score between 15-30 percentile points higher than children from public schools on standardized tests and also score above average on the SAT and ACT, according to Dr. Brian Ray, president of the National Home Education Research Institute. Because of this, colleges are beginning to actively recruit homeschool students. Is that not enticing?

Of course, nothing is as easy as it sounds. What does it take to homeschool? What do you need to know to start homeschooling? Find out soon!