At the end of each school year, I create portfolios of my kids’ work. This can be done no matter what schooling option your family chooses (homeschooling, public, private). I collect their work throughout the year (in a 3-ringed binder so that it stays in chronological order), and then in May or June I go through the binder and choose what I want to keep. There is no rhyme or reason to what I keep, just whatever I feel is their best work that they will enjoy looking at again years to come. Sometimes I keep important history or science papers that might come in handy if we study that same topic again later on. Writing samples, artwork, maps, etc. are all included. Sometimes I take pictures of the child’s artwork and make a document of all the pictures to print out and include in the portfolio (instead of trying to keep the artwork, which can be messy or cumbersome to keep).

I chose to use a binding machine and create small booklets for each child, because the alternative was to keep multiple 3-ringed binders, which can take up a lot of room on a shelf and isn’t very cost effective (purchasing multiple binders each year). These thin booklets make it easy for my kids to grab and flip through and are easily accessible in a basket on our schoolroom shelf.

Here is a video I made to demonstrate how I create these and what I put inside.

Things to note:

This was the first year that I kept all their work in a 3-ringed binder instead of just in a folder (or in a pile in a corner). In past years I wasn’t sure if the 3 holes would interfere with the binding. I decided to try it this year because it was a more organized way to keep everything. And, in the end, the 3 holes didn’t interfere when it was bound (as you can see in the photo).

I kept all three of my kids’ work in one large 3-ringed binder….so, ONE place for ALL kids to put their finished work and ONE thing for me to show my homeschool reviewer (truly!). So easy! (Of course it depends what requirements your reviewer has for you. The county I report to does not require that I bring more than this.)

[In the video I mentioned that most of my kids’ portfolios are filled with notebooking pages. See this post to read more about how to incorporate notebooking into your homeschool day.]

This is the laminator and binding machine that I mentioned in the video. This particular binding machine is not currently available (I purchased it in 2014), but I’m sure you can find something similar to it on Amazon. This one was the Comb Binding Machine (399915) by Papermonster. Since my laminator is several years old, too, the below links will take you to Scotch’s updated version and the laminating pouches I buy (100 pack for around $10!).