How to Create a Homeschool Portfolio
What is a homeschool portfolio?
A homeschool portfolio serves as a way to record your child’s progress, keep homeschool records and even satisfy requirements for some states. Many families keep a homeschool portfolio even when not required by their state’s law as it serves as a keepsake or summary of their homeschool year. Depending on what your state may require you to include, your homeschool portfolio can be as simple as displaying pieces of work from throughout the year to show academic progress or as complex and ornate as a homeschool year scrapbook.
How do I create a homeschool portfolio?
There are a few ways to create a homeschool portfolio. You can create a traditional homeschool portfolio in a three-ring binder or accordion folder. Some families may create their portfolio digitally or via social media. This post shares tips on creating a physical portfolio.
Supplies you may need for your homeschool portfolio:
- Three-ring binder
- Accordion folder
- Dividers (we love these avery heart ones)
- Title page (download our rainbow title pages)
- Sheet protectors for items you can’t hole punch
What should be included in a homeschool portfolio?
Decide what you’d like to include in your homeschool portfolio. Our family creates a “running portfolio” every year so at the end of the year it’s complete. This means we add to it daily or weekly instead of having to compile it all at once at the end of our homeschool year.
Be sure to include a variety of work samples and documents from throughout the year so you can show the progress made by your child.
- Important documents such as Notice of Intent and medical records
- List of curriculum
- Reading or book log
- Attendance record
- Syllabus or learning objectives
- Samples of work from all required subjects and electives
- Writing samples
- Daily or weekly lesson plans or checklists
- Log and/or photos of activities, projects, experiments
- Field trip summaries or photos
- Extra curricular activities
Some of these items may be required by your state while others may be optional. Be sure to check with the teacher or professional who will be reviewing your portfolio for their requirements and suggestions.
How do I organize a homeschool portfolio?
There are a few ways you can organize your portfolio. We organize ours by subject. You can also organize by date and mix all subjects together. Your reviewer may have a specific way they’d like your portfolio so be sure to check with them first.
Our portfolio includes the important paperwork, lists and logs first. Then we use simple binder dividers to separate each subject and elective.
I was definitely terrified of having to create a homeschool portfolio for Amelia when we first started homeschooling. Now, our portfolios are a fun way to showcase the girls’ favorite work and progress each year. We compile them even during the years that we complete standardized testing because we enjoy compiling everything together and looking back on them each year. We add our portfolios into our student school box at the end of each year to keep with our other schoolwork and I know we’ll continue to pull them out and admire them year after year.
You can subscribe to updates from our blog and download the colorful title pages that I’ve created for this year’s portfolios.
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