Build a fantastic Portfolio

While New Hampshire law requires all home school students (both 193-A students as well as EFA 194-F students) to build a portfolio, there is a lot of leeway in the laws that define these portfolios. While that definitely allows for a lot of FUN options, it can sometimes feel a little vague or unsettling to new home schoolers just setting out on their journey.

If you're a checklist person, this Portfolio Evaluation Checklist gives some good suggestions to get you started, as long as you promise not to read it too strictly, and to understand that portfolios come in all shapes and sizes. :)

Portfolios contain a record of what your child learned over the last school year. Every student's portfolio looks different from every other one, and can be simple and straightforward or ornate and involved. Fun things to include are photos of educational outings, projects, get-togethers, art work, favorite books, music events, etc. Keep a reading list (or have your student do it) - it doesn't need to be comprehensive, but a good list of titles the student read (or listened to) that year. Include sample work from each of the main "school subjects" - math worksheets, science projects or journals, handwriting samples, etc.

Some portfolios are highly organized and well labeled notebooks with dividers . . . other portfolios look more like a Stack of Important Papers tucked into a Market Basket bag with the child's name and school year written in Sharpie on the back.

If you choose to have your student's portfolio assessed by an evaluator, know that each evaluator has a slightly different style; I have described my own Portfolio Evaluation Meeting here.

It can be fun for a child (and encouraging for a parent!) to sit together at the end of a year and go back through the things you've done that year . . . most parents are very pleasantly surprised how much got done and how many memories were made, too!

Photos of Sample Portfolios