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Organizing your portfolios
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By Missouri state law, “Homeschools must maintain (but do not need to submit) the following records:
a. A plan book, diary, or other record indicating subjects taught and activities engaged in
b. AND “samples of a child’s academic progress or other written credible evidence”,
c. AND “a record of evaluations of the child’s academic progress”
d. OR “other written, credible evidence equivalent to subparagraphs a) b) c)” Parents have the option to follow a, b, c, or they can choose to follow only d) which permits more flexibility.
I planned on my reports from the Organizer being my records for option D. It is a written record showing progress in each area with the occasional note of additional field trips or learning experiences. We cover 15 subjects every year, so this seems quite comprehensive about our progress. (For my dd with APD, a lot of stuff is oral, so this really does show her progress from beginning to end.) I also have my yearly goals and my evaluations of our year after the end of the year.
Just a couple of quick questions:
1. In your opinion, are the Organizer reports, my goals, and yearly evaluations enough to cover option D?(Disclaimer: I know that we are not legal experts!)
2. For those who have to organize a homeschool portfolio, how do you divide it up? By year within subjects, a cumulative one by subject, or some other way? What do you choose to include? Anything besides your written work and your planners like pictures of field trips, certificates, artwork, video or audio recordings of your child’s music or drama?
If I have to create a portfolio, I am leaning towards my Organizer reports and a term paper in each subject (so three for each subject per year), whether that be a history exam, a map drill, a science paper, a math test, a handwriting sample, etc. (By the way, I am not covering high school work in this portfolio.)
I don’t want big and complicated. If I have to do a portfolio, I just want a nicely organized (easily maintained) basic portfolio. =)
Well, I think that the Organizer reports and your goals fit the requirement A, and your evaluations sound like they fit requirement C…
No idea what they mean by option D…. but what you said sounds like A and C to me….
I am not required to do a portfolio – and I have to admit so far I have kept almost ALL my kids’ work! I have just been debating what to do myself, as I need to get ready for the next year, and I don’t want Binders and Binders of stuff (with 4 kids, I can envision a lot!)
A couple of suggestions I had seen was from my mentor last year
1) storing work in sheet protectors during the year – the at the end of the year having it bound like a book. (She had a link to a company that would do that with a nice cover – would look kind of like a yearbook… it was about $18US I think… – using the sheet protectors was so that you didn’t get the punch-holes in your book!)
2) Get a Sturdy Expandible folder (1 per child) with 12 divisions in it…. then you have a place for each year/grade’s work. For each subject, pick a few items from the start of the year, mid year, and end of year (to show progress). Add in some pictures of things like field trips, models, etc.
3) Use Good quality Notebooks for each subject… (this was what she did with her kids – but couldn’t find a good source anymore to recommend…) – This is NOT divided by year so much… So you have your nature notebook, math notebook, history notebook, literature notebook, science notebook, drawing notebook, etc. She recommended a fairly high quality book – probably with a hard cover – to encourage the student to care about it and do their best in them. These books were used until they were full… So the History book might be year 1 and part of year 2, etc…
I’m now wondering how much a place like Staples would charge to just coil-bind (or otherwise bind) a book?
D sounds too nebulous to know what would be acceptable, but I do not believe the organizer reports are enough alone. Like Suzukimom, I think organizer reports meet A requirements and evaluations mercy C requirement, but you need to show progress within your portfolio. This is fairly simple. Include samples of any written work from beginning, middle and end of year (copywork, math sheets or tests, written or drawn narrations, audio file of oral narration could be added, I guess). include artwork or photos of kids working/doing if you have a few and that’s all that’s tyPically needed for that B requirement.
FWIW, I’m not in your state, but this is what I’d do.
Blessings,
Christie
That is pretty much what I was thinking, too. Sometimes it just helps to have other give their imput. Thanks. =)
I am not even sure what would qualify for the d) requirement if it is taking the place of the other 3! Pretty vague wording on that one.
We don’t have to do a portfolio, but I like the idea b/c I like SuzukiMom have piles of stuff. OK not like SuzukiMom b/c mine is all just in tubs once the year is over LOL! I need to get on this.
I’m envisioning having it spiral bound, but that might be too much. Has anyone considered scanning it and reducing and making into a book? My favorite place to do this is blurb.com b/c it allows for use of mixed sources (photos, scans, artwork scanned, written pages, etc.).
Hmm .. in my spare time LOL!
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