Wednesday, September 2, 2009

Handprint Calendar Portfolio

I found this website that has your child create a monthly calendar using their hand prints. There's also a cutsie poem at the beginning that talks about little hands. This makes a nice gift for grandparents, godparents, and anyone else who might like a nice memento from your child. I'm using it this year as a basis for a portfolio system for the older kids schoolwork.

While I'm not required by law to keep any type of documentation of our homeschooling journey, I still want to have a record of the progress the kiddos make. This is a good thing for all parents to have--especially for those days that you wonder, "Why in the world am I homeschooling?" :) You can look back and see the progression your child has made. The monthly calendar will serve as that month's tab in a binder and we can put schoolwork into the binder under the corresponding month.

The portfolios also serve another purpose...a way to keep the paper, crafts, worksheets, etc. to a minimum. I don't know if you're kiddos are like mine, but when it comes to art projects and crafts, they want to keep every single one of them. This can get out of control very fast if I don't keep it under control. Princess is old enough to decide what can go in the portfolio and what she would like to leave out. I have a feeling she will want to keep it all! I decided that the larger projects and crafts we can take pictures of and place the pictures in the portfolio.

As the school year progresses I will comment about how this system is working for us and what, if any, improvements I've made to the system.

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