Homeschool Portfolios

Because I'm a minimalist wannabe, I can't stand the thought of keeping all the girls' schoolwork for each year we homeschool. During the year, I keep all our work in a binder (each girl has their own). It's a great way to organize the school work and at the end of the year, it's a great visual to see all we've accomplished (because it often feels like we aren't doing much).

BUT....If I keep two large binders every single year, I'll have a lot of binders sitting on my shelf taking up valuable closet space.

Enter the Homeschool Portfolio.

Like most good ideas, this one did not originate in my head. My sister-in-law, Mary,  did something similar, and she got the idea from Sarah, another homeschooling mom. 

Here's what I did....

Each girl has a summary page with a photo from September and a photo from June. They answered some prompts and I typed it up and printed it out on cardstock.

Then I outlined all their accomplished work. I included the following: Math, Writing, Language Arts, Memory Work, Music, History, Science, Geography, Field Trips, Service, Read Alouds, Independent Reading, Other and Violin Performances. I printed these out on some fancy paper I had.

I also created photo collages using Walgreen's photo service. Each girl has 3 photo collages. There are two that feature photos from our field trips, art work and general learning. The third one has photos of them playing violin - practicing, performances and book graduation.

Each girl will have their own binder and each year we will add a few pages like these to represent the year. I will also include a few samples of their work so they can look back and remember.

Already these are a hit with my girls, and I can only imagine they will become more and more precious with each passing year.