As you begin to collect work samples of your students work the question that may come to mind is, How should I best display the amazing work that my student has completed this year?” It really is a matter of personal choice, but I am listing some organizational ideas to help you.

• Bring workboooks of the school year that has been completed. This is the most common form of displaying a student’s work if you are using traditional textbooks.
• Binders are a great way to show looseleaf papers and other work that is not from a workbook. Tabs are helpful to use as headings for individual subjects if you combine them in a notebook. You could have one large binder for all work or several smaller binders for individual subjects.
• Accordion pleated folders are helpful since you can place wok samples in each of the slots and label each separate subject. For example: Math, Reading, Handwriting, Social Studies, Health, etc.
• A large box such as one that holds reams of paper works well if you have binders to bring or large items you’d like to show me. (artwork, models, etc.) I am only suggesting, and this is by no means a requirement! 🙂
• Pictures on your phone are an easy and portable way to show activities and projects if you don’t want to bring them and run the risk of something happening. You may have had your student do a class that was on the computer and have no way of printing off the answers. You can take a picture of the screen with the scores for the year if you like.
•  Voice recordings on your phone are helpful if you would like to ask questions about progress or want to show progress that is being made in reading.
• Scrapbooks/yearbooks are a wonderful keepsake and a snapshot of things you have done over the year. They serve a dual role because they help me as an assessor to see what kind of activities you have done, but they are yours to show for years to come.
• Descriptions of co-op classes your student was a part of help document classes that you did not teach at home. If a syllabus is available for a class you can include that too.
• Program guides from ballets, music performances, or certificates of completion for a gym class or a babysitting course, etc. help to document what your student has done.
• Badges from scout programs such as American Heritage Girls or Trail Life are great for showing topics of study that are more difficult to document such as fire safety or first aid.

I realize this is only scratching the surface on how you can organize your student’s portfolio, but I hope this gives you some ideas. As you can see from what I have listed above, there are a variety of ways to document and display work. Use whatever means works best for you and feel free to come up with other ideas.

~Lisa