Guest Author - Meg Grooms

Before I begin let me stress how important it is to know your local home education laws. Knowing the law better than school officials is the strongest way to protect your rights.

So exactly what is a homeschool portfolio and what purpose does it serve?

A portfolio is nothing more than a few samples of your child’s work put together in one place. Not all states require you to maintain a portfolio, but keeping one serves several purposes. It serves as a treasured keepsake of your child’s life and it can be a vital part of the evaluation process.

What you put in your portfolio is up to you and the laws of your state. A good place to start is with a reading log and a journal of daily activities, which can be kept in one notebook. For evaluation purposes you want to include samples of your child’s work from the beginning, middle and end of the year. We’re not talking about every single worksheet ever completed, just a few samples. Think of yourself as an artist. When you meet with someone to gain a contract you don’t want to show them every single painting you created since birth, just a sampling of what you can do. Your child’s portfolio should be like this, it should show what they can do and how much they have improved since their last evaluation.

You can include some narrations, nature notebooks, samples of handwriting (I find it easiest to make copies of letters my children write), photos of artwork and science experiments and the like. Toss in a few brochures from places visited and perhaps a photo or two from field trips or group activities. Throw it all into a manila folder and voila, you have a portfolio ready for evaluation.

For record-keeping purposes you may want to include correspondence with school officials, but remove this information before evaluation. If an attendance log is required by your state you will want to make sure it’s included.

You don’t want to make your evaluation preparation stressful and you don’t want to over-burden your evaluator with a million papers. Keeping it simple allows the evaluator more time to speak with your child to form a real evaluation, and just plainly makes it easier for everyone involved.