Homeschool Portfolio-Finished!

For the past couple of weeks I have been spending a lot of off-time trying to put together and complete our homeschool portfolio. For those of you who don't know, us homeschoolers are required to turn in some form of assessment to the Board of Education by June 30th of each year. We choose (for now) to use a Portfolio Review for our assessment. This requires putting together samples of the child's work from the year for a certified teacher to review, then a form is signed by the teacher and she adds her certification number, and then you send it in.
This year I decided to let a teacher who is in one of our homeschool groups to do our review.....online. A new experience for me, although I'm very much used to 'online' anything, I had to choose some of their work for each subject, scan each page, and upload to another blog I made especially for our review. Also added into this is my input, goals, weaknesses, and I'm sure I got a twinge of 'pride' in there somewhere. LOL But before I started the portfolio I was very nervous, as homeschooling mothers (or fathers, in some cases), you worry that you're not doing enough work, covering enough material or topics, and you just basically second guess your own teaching abilities. After several hours of work put into this though, I put those fears aside! Once I started compiling their work, adding in the 'extras, that we do, and putting it all down on paper (well, not paper, on the blog LOL) then I really saw just how much we've done and how far we've come. We could stop homeschooling for the year right now and we'd still have way more work than public school does....but....our year will end on or about May 30 (God willing). I am so relieved to have the Portfolio completed this early.

Oh, and a note on that......yes, we have until June 30th to turn in the reviewers form, but these things need to be done early enough that time is given for compiling the review, the reviewer needs to have time to really review what you put together for them so that an honest assessment can be made, and time enough to get the form filled in by both the reviewer and the parents, then sent in with time to spare so that you're butt is covered in case the mail is slow or something. I will send mine by certified mail so I will have a reciept in case anything happens. I also send in the NOI at the same time. This is our Notice of Intent to homeschool for next year, that lets the BOE know they will be homeschooled again next year. That doesn't have to be sent in until a couple of weeks before school starts, but I go ahead and 'kill two birds with one stone', as they say. Our reviewer teaches public school AND homeschools her own kids, so she is only reviewing from April 1 - May 15, because she has to get her own assessments done and reviewed (not sure what kind of assessment she uses though), but she still has to wrap up her own year end stuff, both at her job and at home, so it's totally understandable that she'd have a cut-off date. BUT, I do know (from last year's observations) that she will more than likely be doing reviews right on up til the last minute for people who suddenly realize they are out of time or something.....LOL, because that's how she is, she will help in any way she can.
Enough of that I guess....sorry if that was boring. I'm just excited to be finished with something that is so important (have to be totally legal) so early! Now I can move on to other things....like starting the ball rolling on a little business venture I want to start into. I designed and put together the most awesome homeschool yearbook for my kids, it turned out so well that I want to offer to do them for other homeschoolers. When the thought came to me about doing our own, I checked online to see what was available to us. Not a whole lot at all! Josten's offers a 'kit', not very appealing at all, you put your pics on their templates and send it back to them and they send you a book, at a cost that is not worth the results, if you ask me. I also found another place that offers a kit that is 'cute', but it's more of an art project for the kids or something, a true scrapbooking project. A nice keepsake to have that the kids have made....but not a real 'true' professional looking yearbook.

My yearbooks will have the homeschool's name, logo (designed by me if one is not provided) with mascot and school name, pages will include:

• student introduction page (student pic, name, age, grade)
• student's interests page (with pics)
• curriculum page (description and/or pics of some books and/or work, to show family and friends what homeschoolers do
• field trip pages (with pics taken of or at different locations)
• special projects page (with pics and info on any projects)
• school activities pages (additional things not considered as bigger projects, i.e. science experiments, finished art projects, etc.)
• family page (with pics taken throughout the year, family gatherings, etc.)
• family activites page (pics and descriptions of activities the whole family participates in
• sports page (pics and descriptions of student playing, or team pic)
• music page (pics and descriptions of any musical activity, lessons, favorite music, music class, etc.)
• friends page (with pics of the students and a few friends)
• student comment page (student's own opinion/feelings about homeschooling
• autograph pages (for family and friends to sign)

I can't wait to get started on a site or blog to offer these books. I will be using our yearbook as an example, but I also want to do a few more sample pages that our's does not include, and add different designs, to show a customer what is available and what can be done. If you're a homeschooler reading this and you are interested, let me know in email or by posting here and I'll put you on a list to let you know when the site for ordering is ready.

I'm off here now.....time to get back to life around here!