Planning your portfolio

How do you go about planning your child's portfolio for the year? I get asked a thousand questions each year. I love answering the questions, because these mothers really want to do a good job. Here is the basic overview.

Portfolios are ways to show progress over time.

/pôrtˈfōlēˌō/noun

1.a large, thin, flat case for loose sheets of paper such as drawings or maps.

2.a range of investments held by a person or organization.

Design a Portfolio with Ease

Do you have a design in mind for your portfolio? Whether you prefer a trendy scrapbook look or you’re going for a more business style - there’s a creative way to make either happen.

Create the portfolio

Traditional portfolios are three-ring-binders (any quality - I've seen every style and type there is...) with tabs denoting the five mandatory subjects of math, reading, language, science, social studies. Additionally, some parents put tabs for extra-curricular activities, art, music, sports, etc.

Uniqueness

Be original, show off your child's style, and tell your yearly homeschool story.

You can create flowery sheets with glossy protectors to showcase the certificate of completion for a workbook or perfect attendance at co-op class. Scrap paper is not necessary, but protecting the portfolio could be advantageous for future endeavors such as posterity, bragging to your mother-in-law, or remembering where you went on that third-grade field trip? Families can keep track of field trips, books read, and memories made by adding a few logs and pictures to the mix.

Ultimately, you'll need to include a few worksheets or reports for the student to show progress over time. A few samples from the beginning of the school year (or from the time you start), the middle of the school year (around January for a typical 10-month school schedule) and some from the end of the year (April and May samples). Worksheets are great for this, but so are writing samples and math work. Writing is so satisfying to see because you not only get to see improved penmanship, but you also get to see progress in sentence structure, subject-verb agreement, thought processes, creativity, and paragraph formations.

Get Inspired

Tell me what you think so far and give other moms some ideas to create a great portfolio this year!