The end of our school year is quickly approaching. And for us that means that I am putting the finishing touches on our homeschool portfolios.  I love being able to flip through our notebooks at the end of the year and see all the progress my boys have made and remember the fun projects we did together.

A quick note: Be sure to check the homeschool laws for your state. Where I live, we have the option of either keeping a portfolio or testing at the end of each year.  You want to make sure that you are in compliance with whatever laws are in place.

In my early homeschool years, it was a mad dash at the end of the year to get our portfolios together in time for evaluations.  I finally learned my lesson and work on each notebook all year long. This way when evaluation season rolls around, we are ready to go. And I like to keep things really simple: 3 ring binders, dividers, and sheet protectors.

Here are some tips to help you get started with homeschool portfolios

1. Have a Homeschool Portfolio Plan

I am a big planner,  typically planning our entire year in advance.  I use these lesson plans to help get an idea of what I want to keep for our portfolios.  I also use our plans to create sections for the portfolios: math, reading, copywork, history, etc.

2. Don’t Keep Everything for the Potfolio

You don’t have to keep every single piece of paper that your children work on during the school year. The point of a portfolio is to show progress. I like to pick 3-4 items for each 12 week term to include in our portfolios.  I often ask my boys what they want to include.

Things to keep include any paperwork that you have to turn in to the school board, lists of books your child has read, and a list of what curriculum you’ve used.

3. Take Pictures

This is something that I just stared doing last year.  Anytime that you take a field trip, take your camera along so you can include a picture from the location in your portfolio. Also pictures come in handy for those big projects that won’t fit in your notebook. Video is another great way to preserve projects and abstract assignments.

4. Scan and Save Digital Versions

I like to scan the contents of our portfolio and save the image files on my computer. Depending on the rules in your state, you may be able to email the document for evaluation. I like to go in person for ours, but I am required to keep the portfolios for three years. I like the idea of saving things digitally instead of having lots of paper to store.

5. Let Your Kids Make it Personal

Each year I print a cover for my boys’ notebooks. They are allowed to decorate this page anyway they want.  I also give them an About Me page to put in the front. This helps the teacher who does our evaluations get to know my boys better.

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About halfway through our school year I get really excited about the upcoming year. In the past I would usually create a plan that I would end up regretting about halfway through the year. Noticing this pattern, I chose to make a change.  I put my life coaching skills to work as I started evaluating our year before making plans for the upcoming school year. I found these three questions extremely helpful during that evaluation and planning process.

#1 What went well?

This is a very important place to start. When you are in planning mode, you can save yourself a lot of searching and stressing if you know what went well for that year.

Did you finally find a history curriculum that your entire family loved? Great! Stick with it for next year!  If you figured out that your child will not complain about math if he can work on math facts in a mask and cape, stick with it.

Looking at the things that were successful for your year, will help you see the progress that you’ve made over the last few months. I have found that anytime that I can feel like I’ve accomplished something, it motivates me to keep going.

#2 What didn’t go well?

For the past four  years there is always something that simply doesn’t go as planned.

• projects we didn’t get to
• curriculum that didn’t work for us
• scheduling that was a big flop

Just as you need to look at the success from the year, you also need to look at what didn’t work. Seeing what didn’t work will give you a starting point for making changes.

#3 What needs to change?

Here’s where some actual planning comes in. Take a look at the things you wrote down or thought about from #1 and #2 and note where changes need to be made.  Do you need to find a new resource or curriculum all together? Maybe a minor tweak of how you use something you already have will be enough.

When I finished going over those 3 questions this past month, I realized that there wasn’t a lot that I needed to buy for next year. There were things that went really wrong this year (like math) that I found a good fix for and other things like nature study that we rocked!

What about you? How do you get started with your planning for next year?

When I first decided to homeschool my boys, I looked  at what other people were doing. I knew of only one family in real life that was homeschooling. This family was composed of a single mom and her children. She was a full-time law student, and she seemed to make things work.  Then I watched a family on TV homeschool their children, and I thought, “I can handle that.”

And then I got started.

I was lost, confused and in way over my head. 

There are many things that I struggled with as a new homeschool mom, but I think the most difficult has been avoiding the comparison trap.  No matter how hard I try, I seem to fall into that pit over and over again. I see a project on Pinterest and think to myself that I’m failing because I could never pull it off.  Even when we have success in our lessons, I feel inadequate when a friend’s child seems to be doing far better than my own.

So what are we to do? How can we learn not to take the comparison bait?

Cast a Vision for Your Homeschool

Before starting your homeschool journey it’s important to have a vision. Why are you homeschooling? What are your goals for your family?  Creating a vision and long-term plan for your homeschool will help you recover when burnout sets in, when you start a new math curriculum for the seventh time, or when you start to feel inadequate.

Define What Success Looks Like

Every family is different, and every family will homeschool differently. I’m going to let you in on a secret that has really served me well over the years: You decide what success looks like for your children.

If test scores and completed textbooks are not something that you think is important, then don’t use them to measure the success of your homeschool year.

I have learned to place a higher value on progress instead of constantly measuring my children against others. As long as we are moving forward in our lessons and in learning, we are successful.

Play to Your Strengths

Here’s the thing — not everyone is going to be the mom who does all the fun hands-on activities, complicated crafts, and beautiful projects.  Maybe your strength is in planning fun field trips or finding great read alouds. Whatever it is, stick with that.  When you focus on the things that you do well (and that your children do well), you won’t have time to look at what other’s are doing.

Those are just three ways that I’ve learned to combat the need to compare myself to other families. When all else fails, you could always just avoid Pinterest and blogs for a short amount of time. You can’t compare yourself to the things you aren’t looking at right?

For More Homeschool Encouragement, Follow This Pinterest Board

Homeschooling as a single mom is something that many people don’t understand.

When I started homeschooling my children, everyone around me thought I was crazy. They couldn’t understand why I would walk away from a full-time legal career to be at home with my children. Surely I needed to put them in school so I could work and provide for them?

The truth is that I questioned my decision to homeschool as a single mom many times. There were moments when I thought that I would have quit.  There were times when I felt unsure. But over the years I have found that what most people told me would be impossible has been possible.

Are you a single mom or dad considering homeschooling? Are you a single parent already in the homeschool trenches?

1. You are not alone!

Yes it’s true that there is a growing community of single parents homeschooling their children.  For a long time I thought that I was the only one until I started looking. I found one single mom and then another and another.  We need to encourage each other and support each other.

There are also many people in the homeschool community that are ready and willing to help out a single mom and her children.  The key is to ask and to take the help when it’s offered.

2. You don’t have to break the bank to homeschool

The question that I’m asked the most is how can I afford to homeschool as a single mom?  The truth is that you can spend as much or as little as you want to educate your children. I am a huge fan of multi-age curriculum because being able to buy one curriculum that will work for all of my children over many years saves money. Also using the library to help find great books will allow you to teach many subjects without spending a dime.

3. Always opt for simplicity in your homeschool

As a single parent you have a lot on your plate already. When you take on homeschooling, you probably need another plate, a bowl, and a baking dish to hold all you have to manage!  I have found that keeping our schedule simple is key to staying sane.  Our schedule allows me to get our lessons finished each day with time left over for fun, for work, and to keep the house (relatively) clean.

Those are just a few things to encourage you on your journey as a single homeschool parent.  Remember to have fun with your children and enjoy being able to walk beside them as the learn and explore the world.  You may not be able to do it all but you can find joy as a single mom and as a homeschool mom.

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Homeschooling Kindergarten is exciting, but it can also be very stressful. I remember trying to wade through the massive homeschool catalogs, deciding what I needed to teach my five-year-old boy.  I ended up with a comprehensive curriculum that  overwhelmed both me and my son.

Kindergarten should be a time of fun exploration when you and your child ease into a slightly more formal education. It took me a while to figure this out and accept it, but, boy, am I glad I did. My third child will not have to suffer like his/her big brothers did! I finally figured out that I just need to keep things simple, short and fun for Kindergarten.

There are only three subjects that I think are important for Kindergarten. (Actually these are the subjects that I primarily focus on for Kindergarten through second grade).

Teaching your Child to Read

Learning to read is one of the most important skills during an education at home or anywhere else. I always tell my boys that if they can learn to read and comprehend well, they can learn almost anything they want.

Learning to read takes a lot of effort on your child’s part and great patience on your part.

For Kindergarten continue to read with my children, but I also add in about 5-10 minutes of daily phonics instruction. I keep the lessons simple, short, and fun. For example, we use games and magnetic letters as my child learns to blend and read short words. Later, we use Bob Books so he can read on his own.

Handwriting/Copywork

Learning to write can be a lot of fun as long as your child doesn’t have to slave over rows and rows of letters. I have my boys take their time to copy merely five of their best letters in a row and end the lesson before they get overwhelmed or stressed.

Using lots of hands-on activities like salt tracing, sandpaper letters, and playdough help your child practice forming letters without having to put pencil to paper all the time. Plus those activities are great for strengthening their fine motor muscles!

Living Math

After suffering through a few math curriculums, I realized that I just need to relax when it came to beginning math.  Everyday life presents lots of moments to work on math skills without pulling out flash cards and worksheets (unless your child loves those then godspeed).

• complete patterns with wooden blocks
• practice sorting by putting the silverware away
•  count the number of apples we bought at the store or the number of socks we pulled from the dryer
• go on shape hunts during drives in the car

Find what works for your family and make it fun! By the end of the year, they will have all the tools and basic skills they need to jump right into a more formal math program or you can continue with living math for as long as it works for you.

The only other subject that I might add to this list for a Kindergartner is nature studies.  Children need to spend lots of time outside, exploring, running, playing, and getting dirty. My guys loved digging for worms or hunting for bugs on our nature walks or while playing at the park. It spark lots of conversations about the world around us.

For More Homeschool Encouragement, Follow This Pinterest Board