Work Samples

Our homeschool is technically included in a charter school here in Alaska.  We are assigned to a state-certified contact teacher who lends help if we need it.  Our contact teacher helps to keep records of our progress throughout the school year.  If we decide to transfer to a brick and mortar (not that there are any brick schools in Alaska) school someday, all of our records are complete and easily transferrable.  If we decide to homeschool through graduation, each student receives a diploma and their permanent records are complete.  Alaska is unique in its approach to homeschooling for several reasons.  Mainly, Alaska needs to be supportive of homeschoolers because of the geography of our state.  We have a large number of rural communities with very few students.  The state requires that a public school be built and a full-time teacher be retained for any community meeting the minimum number of students each school year.  Still, there are a considerable number of communities that do not meet the requirements for a public school.  For this reason, Alaska has several 'distance learning' programs throughout the state that are established as charter schools through the state.  They allow for funding for homeschooler's needs, assistance for homeschool families, and accountability for students.

I recommend any homeschool family do some research into what programs are available where you live to assist you in your homeschooling and to help maintain your records.  Many Christian Schools are beginning to add benefits for homeschoolers.  They offer music and sports programs, science labs, etc . . . for homeschoolers on a class by class basis to supplement the homeschool education.  Some video or internet based programs maintain permanent records for your students as well.  I would recommend that any family interested in homeschooling research the available options and be sure that there is a reliable means by which to maintain records of your children's work.  You may desire to homeschool your children from preschool through graduation, but permanent records are always helpful whether you are transferring to a traditional school or applying for college. 

As part of our charter school program, we turn in work samples each quarter and progress reports (a.k.a. report card grades) every semester.  This year, I was inspired to do something unique with our work samples each quarter.  I purchased 5 each of 4 different colors of 2-pocket folders.  That would be 1 folder for each child in a different color for each quarter.  We chose a cute cut-out to decorate the folder and filled it full of some of our best work and our favorite activities.  I will (Lord Willing) also include a photo in each folder of something we've done this quarter.  I just wanted to share the pictures with you, because I thought they were a fun way to showcase our work.

Since I've missed another Friday's worth of my favorite things, I wanted to share these with you.  They are Reading Response pads from Lakeshore Learning.  I purchased them last year and I love them.  They come in a pack of four pads.  Each pad contains 100 sheets of full-color pages for students to fill in with information about any book they are reading.  They have been excellent to add to our literature units.  We use them once a week or so as part of Josh and Joy's independent daily work.  Joy loves them because she gets to draw and color.  Josh doesn't really like the coloring part (as you can tell by his paper) but he does like to 'report' on his books.  I love them because they are colorful and help the kids think about the books they've been reading and encourages them to share the things they liked or disliked about the book.