Portfolios (Reposted from August)

My school district’s view on alternative assessment seems to be evolving in a positive direction. I have decided to focus some of my energy on creating a portfolio for each of the kids this year.

In organizing my portfolios (which are simply ordinary 3-ring notebooks with those handy section dividers everyone has on sale at this time of year) I adapted the guidelines in Angela’s excellent post on this subject.

I expect this will work well for us, because we’re relaxed eccentric — um … eclectic home schoolers, and this gives me a way to pull everything together in a way that appears to reveal a method to our madness. For example, I can file pictures and descriptions of our periodic outings under science (nature study), group scattered discussions of historical novels chronologically under “history,” and so forth. I think this would work well for unschoolers, too.

It also gives me an outlet for my anal-retentive desire to organize stuff and for my intermittent bursts of productive energy. Not to mention a use for all my cool scrapbooking supplies that have been lying dormant.

Most people’s portfolios probably don’t need to be organized in such a fussy way (you probably don’t need 4 subcategories for “Math,” for example). But this is my first go at it, we rarely follow curricula, and I have reason to believe our school district will be fairly picky about evaluating “adequate progress” in math and language arts. So — for me — this is probably not a case where “less is more.”

One of the things I like best about Angela’s post is her discussion of how she writes end-of-year descriptions of her kids’ work in specific areas. That’s another tool I will definitely use.

Here’s how I set them up:

Missy (age 4 — PreK or K) — I will not be required to submit any proof of progress for her until she is 6-1/2. But I decided it would be fun to start now. Her portfolio does not have any particular organization; right now I am just using her binder as a place to store interesting information on preschool learning.

I may just organize hers chronologically, without sorting things by academic subject. I’m thinking of putting together pages (like scrapbook pages) on certain learning themes like “Cycles of Nature” (raising caterpillars to butterflies, exploring plant life cycles through gardening, noticing the cycle of seasons, etc.) I’m starting to set up the categories on this blog to reflect that, so I won’t be totally lost at the end of the “school” year.

Martin (turning 10 soon — about Grade 4 or 5) –Marty does not do a lot of written work, so I will be relying heavily on my own notes and photos showing what he’s doing.

• Table of Contents (in outline form)

Sections:

• General (a place for list of goals accomplished, if I make one, his reading log, field trip list, evaluator’s end-of-year report, etc.)
• Math
  • Number Sense
  • Computation & Estimation
  • Measurement & Geometry
  • Probability & Statistics
  • Patterns/Algebra (again, I am trying to set up the categories on this blog to reflect subcategories, like “Number Sense,” to make my job easy later)
• Language Arts
  • Writing (I have a few “beginning of the school year” writing samples here, including brief freewrites (each one is just a few lines) and a picture with small captions written in. I am hoping that his “end of year” samples will show progress in his writing fluency and spelling. If he’s ready.)
  • Spelling (I have a copy of the Spelling Power Scope & Sequence here, along with results of the pre-test he did.)
  • Grammar
  • Reading (I’m doing an informal reading assessment here, just a simple form I created myself that goes along with the reading we’re doing anyway)
• Life Science
• Physical Science
• Social Studies
• Fine Arts
• Health/P.E.

Marie(14 — about Grade 9) –Again, I will be relying heavily on my own notes and photos showing what she’s doing. But actual work samples, especially writing samples, will be more important at this age.

• Table of Contents (in outline form)

Sections:

• General (a place for list of goals accomplished, if I make one, transcripts, course descriptions, evaluator’s end-of-year report, etc.)
• Reading Log
• Extracurricular (for volunteer work, social activities, etc.)
• Subjects
  • Fine Arts
  • Math
    • Number Sense
    • Computation & Estimation
    • Measurement & Geometry
    • Probability & Statistics
    • Patterns/Algebra
  • Language Arts
    • Spelling (I have a copy of the Spelling Power Scope & Sequence here, along with results of the pre-test she did.)
    • Grammar
    • Writing
    • Reading (Again, it has informal reading assessment I devised.)
  • History
  • Biology
  • Psychology
  • Latin