This is a guest post from Misty Bailey – a homeschooling Mom and writer at the popular parenting blog We’re Just Parents.
Many homeschool parents keep records of their children’s work with a homeschool portfolio. A homeschool portfolio is a collection of the child’s work done throughout the year. This can be samples of writing, documents of field trips taken, books read, and collections of tests, really anything that shows where the child was, what they have learned, and where they are now.
Depending on what state you live in you may have to have a homeschool portfolio assessment done each year. Whether you have to have an assessment done or not it is a great idea to have some sort of a portfolio together for your child. This helps keep you accountable, and is a great way to look back on those days, months or years when you feel as though you have accomplished little.
While keeping a homeschool portfolio is a must, finding a place to store all the things you want to keep can sometimes be a hassle. This is why Biteslide is a great way to showcase your child’s homeschool portfolio!
It is all digital, so you have to keep very little on hand. It is easy to use, and slidebooks are fun to make! Here are some tips in making your child’s homeschool portfolio with Biteslide.
Make a Class for each Subject
When using Biteslide to showcase your child’s homeschool portfolio it will be helpful to already have a class made up for each subject. You should also have each student assigned to the appropriate classes. For example if I had Science set up as a class, I would want to add both of my children to this class.
Yes, they make work on some projects together, but I will also want to have some individual projects for each child showcased in each subject. Suggestions for classes could be Science, Math, Language Arts (Reading, Spelling, and Grammar), Extra classes (Art, Music, Health) and History (you could include Geography and Social Studies).
Upload Documents and Samples of Work
Upload samples of projects with your scanner. You can upload Spelling Tests, book reports, History papers, Math worksheets, any paper you would want to keep in your child’s homeschool portfolio you can upload onto your computer. If you went on field trips throughout the year upload tickets or programs from your trips. It is helpful to upload these documents and samples as a jpeg picture instead of as a document. You then take the jpeg file and upload it onto Biteslide. It is now ready to be used in a slidebook!
Upload Pictures
Find pictures that you’ve taken throughout the year. These can be pictures of projects, pictures of field trips, or smiling faces holding Spelling Tests. Any picture that was taken throughout the school year will work. If you have used Biteslide to enhance your school projects you may already have some of these pictures loaded.
Make Your Homeschool Portfolio
Now that you have all the steps in place it is time to showcase your child’s homeschool portfolio! I would suggest doing this chronologically based on subject. I would also suggest doing a separate slidebook for field trips. Depending on what grade your child is in you may have 3 or more slidebook portfolios. If you did not want to do numerous portfolios you could also merge all the classes into one extensive portfolio. There are many different ways you can use Biteslide to showcase your child’s homeschool portfolio!
