I was working on my daughter's portfolio last night and realized, I forgot to put her Pirate Lapbook together. So, we will be working on that this weekend. The other big problem that I see, is that she hasn't put the date on most of her work and now I can't remember when we did the pirate lesson. I'll have to look in my blog and see what day it was.

Thankfully, I had printed out our library "checked out" list and kept it for our records of returns. I forgot to list all reading books for each kid. I was able to go back to the list and type up all the books she has read. I am sure I missed a few. I feel like I am going around in circles. I need to be better organized next year.

I'll also be printing out pictures to add to the portfolios and I will be pretty much done.

That was me last year, but this year I got a 3 ring binder put in page protector's, then printed off Donna's subjects pages. That helped quite a bit then I was able to just put the pages we did in the binder. The other things in there are a page for library books checked out, a video list for educational movies, field trips, calendar pages, a few weather charts of this year.

My point was it looks really nice and it has been so easy for me to keep up this year with little effort on my part.

I'm glad you are both pretty much done. My kids' portfolios look awful - everything is just stuck in there willy-nilly. I don't have to show them to anyone, but I do have to maintain them. I need to fix them up!

I did all that; just didn't think to fill out the library lists.

Applie, you mentioned the pirate lapbook here in the forums and in your blog. You could look those up and go by those dates for a decent guesstimate date.

I did that a lot last year.

I had times like that too. But online at our library, I can print out anything we have checked out and then just print. I can also erase anything that was mine if we only had the one card with us, we have a homeschool card and then my card, but sometimes I only have the one and want a book to read that isn't about homeschooling so I just take those off and print the rest. I think next year I will just do this periodically and end of problem, don't have to write anything down.

I wish we had this feature. Once it is brought back, it is gone. I asked one year, because of a book I wanted to find again and forgot to write it down.

No deal...gone!

Yep, that is what I am going to do. I also have to call a friend and ask about field trips.



That is a neat feature. I wish we had that. I have to print everything out. I do that because I have to keep track of when we return books. They usually do not check one in every few weeks. There was one time I had six books from the library in my home, but they were never checked out. And one time I had one book, but it checked out under a different title.

O.K. here comes the dumb question for the day.

What do you put into a portfolio?

So far we have been very luck to live in two states that have very relaxed homeschooling laws. But I have kept every piece of paper and a few projects that we have produced. With Dh's job we may have to move again and possibly to a state that requires portfolios. Should I be keeping everything? Does it have to be organized in some way? Right now I basically have banker's boxes that I dump the stuff into weekly.

Charlene, that is not a dumb question. There is some information here
Portfolio Sections. If you have any questions, just ask.

Thanks for the link

Read all the posts in the link. It was helpful. Thanks.

I guess I am going to have to get some 3-ring binders. And thank goodness that I used a lot of consumable workbooks the first two years. I didn't date anything. I'll have to seperate the pages into subject then put them in numerical order. Next year I'll have to be a bit more "professional" and date everything since we are moving to a more classical curriculum.

Do you all put a copy of each day's lesson plan with the work? And what do you do for education/teacher notes? Are these like "notes to self" about what needs to be worked on more diligently? Or something else?

Yep, so does mine. I have not been very good about keeping stuff either. Since we do not have to even do anything in this state I have been so lax. I need to get better about it. It would be so nice to look back on and see how well they have done. Good way to keep memories!

We are in a very lax state as well. . .but I am keeping records like the police were coming in tomorrow.

I have attendance sheets from DY (most is from the DY site) curriculum used. . .books we have read (or Mom read to us!)(we have 270 listed as of June of last year!) and I have Lesson Plans. . .(basically saying what we DID do. . .as opposed to what I want us to accomplish!) then I have sectioned off in the back all the Math in one location in (numerical)(date) order. . .then if he draws anything (he is kinda weird he writes dog above his picture or some form of journalizing. . .like if he draws a rabbit he usually spells it out. . .so I put that in one section cause it shows he was spelling the word too) then I have Science (from a workbook from Sam's/Wal-Mart) and any other subjects we have.(last year the whole curriculum was worksheets (lifepacs Alpha Omega) and I got 4 folders. . .Book 1 Math in one Book2 Math in another Book 1 Language Arts in a 3rd and Book 2 Language Arts in a 4th all for K) Then the back section I have for Field Trips. I take Sheet Protectors (I love these things if you don't believe me read Control Journal in Fly Lady section) and I journalize (DY sheet for Homeschool Journal or something) and I put date, where we went, who went with us. . .etc. . .then I take pictures at the time of the Field Trip (not always--but I try) and then I come home and I like Scrapbook and cut and tape pictures on a piece of copy typing paper. .. and then slide it into the Sheet protector and then it is in his notebook what we did. . .where we went. . .who was with us (homeschool group)(our friends) whoever was with us. . .and then we have *evidence* we really did this or that. . .hahahahaaha

Anyway, that is mine. .. what does yours look like. . .so I can steal your ideas. . .

Carmen, I think the attendance sheets should like a great idea. I know we do not need them, but it would definitely help us see how well and how much we have done. Great idea.

Hey, we need to get together sometime. You are really not that far...probably an hour and half or so.

and now with the twins I have been keeping every paper everyday that we do school so they can see improvement on their name writing. Also we are doing a (age appropriate) Bible Correspondence course and after 6 lessons they get a certificate. It is really neat.

I have 3 notebooks for each child. . .but I keep one with me at all times. . .one with everyone's records in it. . .after a month or so. . .I take out of the one notebook and place in their individual ones so I am not going thru 3 notebooks each day just to write down what we did. I have the main notebook with all the forms reading list, attendance sheet, curriculum list, lesson plans. .. in one notebook when it gets full from daily papers I take the daily papers and "file" them in their notebooks for safe keeping. Then once the year is up, I get new (3) notebooks for the next school year. .. and I keep the ONE notebook with my info the same all the time. .that way when I am going thru the house trying to find the one notebook I always know what it looks like

Confused???

At the end of the year. . .ALL the forms go in each child's notebook and start over with fresh forms in the ONE notebook. I just have tabs in my ONE notebook so I can access each child. . .subject. . .lesson plans. . .etc.

I put a sample of work in there. Not all of them. I don't put any education/teacher notes in there either. If I do, they would be at the bottom of the lesson plan page. All I do is write down what they did. I don't even use the attendance sheet, but I am thinking about it for next year.

This is what I do.

Kelley,
Noah loves to look back and do this We have two binders going now, one that has kindergarten and 1st in it and then this years has 2nd. Everything is in page protectors to save it. Every year I get a bit more detailed on what is it in. So it keeps on growing but it looks so nice and when Noah is a father I'm sure he will want these for his children to see. Last year I also started a homeschool scrapbook with just photos of things we did during the year of homeschooling, that is another thing he really loves. *should take pictures and up load them* Ok, I will do this later for you all and come back and post the link here.

I have same problem, but like You I live in Texas also so I do not NEED to keep records, but who knows if we will live here throughout their school experience and need to prove we did something each year.

What I do is I have a small plastic file box and I put their work in it and then once a month or quarter or whatever..(when it is full) I pick what needs to go in a binder and what needs to go in their BOX and what needs thrown away.

We use self inking date stamps for dating our papers. Really helps with the younger ones especially.

I just finished the quarterly reports for our school this weekend. I realized as I was looking for samples that my oldest daughter had been filing papers in the trash can rather than take time to put them in her portfolio ... I was ready to wring her neck ...

This child needs an adjustment ...

That is a great idea!! I used to use one of those when I worked. Office Depot here I come!!



Mine would get an adjustment, if they did that.

I've got to get one of those.

This should probably be another topic (Donna please don't ) when-age/grade should the kids be dating their own work? Since I have only one child I don't even make her put her name on the papers.

As soon as they can write. We had to do that in our first year at school.

My daughter started doing it last year (grade K.) It helped her learn how to spell the months and use the calendar without having me having to sit down and do any formal work on it with her.

I started having them write their names on each page as soon as they could write. You never know when they will be in another class and need to do this. I don't want them to work hard and then not get credit for their work just because they didn't put their name on the page.

Right now I am working on my son to put his whole name on there. He isn't happy.

My older two write the date ... they were trained in school. They are in 5th and 8th ... and they both have always done it. I bought them daters and they said it was more work than necessary ... changing the date etc. My little one struggles with writing and reading ... the date seems like something silly to stress over ... she uses the stamp ... she's in 2nd.

I have printed out some of the pictures I want for the kid's portfolios. So, I am doing pretty good on them. I still have to type up the books that I read to Jo.

I went to Office Depot yesterday and bought a date stamper.

I need to update our portfolios. I keep telling myself I'm going to do this...

Thankfully I was thorough when I set them up at the beginning of the year so now all I need to do is pull stuff from their notebooks & print off our records that I keep on the computer. Whenever I can get around to doing it, that is.