Creating a Homeschool Portfolio

Creating a Homeschool Portfolio: Part One

There is something very soothing about a plan-even when you know it will most likely blow up in your face as life takes over. It gives you a place to dream, to plan, and to prioritize. As I come up on my sixth (6!) year of homeschooling, I turn again to my handy-dandy “Rough Draft” notebook, my YouTube subscriptions, my blog followings, my pinterest pages, and my twitter accounts for ideas, inspirations for the 2020-2021 school year.

WAIT!! You are screaming at me! It is too soon! There is too much that is uncertain! Wait! Patience! And that may be your truth. I respect your truth but must honor mine.

We have waited. Covid-19 struck in this home and we waited. We waited, in gratitude, for food deliveries and well wishes. We waited while my husband healed, we breathed through our fears, and created a new normal that allowed us to enjoy each other without going bananas. Seriously bananas. We leaned into new interests and old, oft-neglected joys. We waited to see loved ones and dedicated time to much-needed work on an eroding landscape (now that was a plan-It was even divided into “zones”).

I understand that my plans may come to nothing but I would rather live for the hope of possibility than sink into, what for me would be, a mire of pessimism.

So I plan.

I have worked with clients throughout their homeschool year on creating and maintaining homeschool portfolios but never used a formal one for my own home. I do not mind the end of year testing and it feels unethical to evaluate my own children’s portfolio as I do for a few other families. Yet given the influx of quarantine-driven school-at-home and debates regarding homeschool oversight I felt that, for me, formalizing my plan in a portfolio would make me happiest this year.

And today I am going to share it with you! Well, part of it 🙂 Take it, use it, laugh it off. Whatever you need.

Before the Portfolio 

1. Partner Interview: Homeschooling is a FAMILY COMMITMENT. Therefore EVERYONE’S readiness and expectations deserve notice. How involved are both sets of parents/grandparents/care givers in the actual teaching? Do you agree on a budget for supplies and classes? Can you handle the chaos of a messy kitchen table and science experiments oozing out of your sink? How much time do you want to spend “in class” and what are your plans for dinners on co-op days? Don’t assume that you are in this alone. You are a team. Together.

2. Children Interview: At another point we sit down and ask our children if homeschooling is still something that they want. This may or may not be a discussion you choose to have in your home. We discuss what they could expect from public school and what they might expect from homeschool that year. I want engaged participants not resentful rebels.

I make a list of their interests and subjects they want to pursue. My husband rolls his eyes at my chicken scratch and crazy cursive. We talk about book genres and clubs. Unicorns and what comes after Eragon. We discuss places they want to go and programs they enjoyed previously. 

Doing this helps me feel excited about what is to come and makes homeschooling a natural part of our home life. It starts as the old “year” is winding down but after you have finished the insanity of commitments that seem to fill up the calendar in May. What is it about May? Apart from this year obviously it is as busy as December!

3. Self-Interview: I am never going to be a wake up and get going girl. I will never be able to make my kids jump up and go-go-go. My bouncy kinetic bundles of joy at 10pm greet the morning as though they are Atlas holding the world on their shoulders. Stooped beneath the weight of morning they stagger toward the couch where they flop dramatically and then fight over the blanket with closed eyes and scrunched faces. They still haven’t figured out that the robes hanging in their room will solve this problem. 

So I need a gentle start to my day that lets me have a lingering cup of coffee(s) and lets my children  groan their way through the first hour of wakefulness. 

I am a talker and a reader raising talkers and readers. Whatever I plan is going to take twice as long as I expect so I am not going to book a schedule that is heavily structured and I am not going to book something that has them hooked into independent learning online. We will crack. I tried limiting a family read aloud to 20 minutes and I heard about it for AGES.

You are a perfectly imperfect being and that needs to go into your homeschool. Don’t try to copy someone else’s pinterest-pretty style. You are more interesting as you are.

Next Time? The Portfolio itself. Come on, you don’t run before you stretch.