[crabe.mamabookworm]

Hi. I live in MD (Balto. Co.) and am working on getting my daughters' homeschool portfolios ready for their reviews on Monday.

1. I have a bunch of workbooks and other stuff but I am concerned about the subjects I can't use books to show - PE was a hard one this year, the kids resisted a lot and I was doing the hsing w/o my husband for the first time (I was laid off in June so I have taken over the hsing from him since he started working a PT job) so I have had a steep learning curve - transitioning to being home AND to doing the teaching. I really don't want to have to put the kids in public school but I am concerned that the reviewer might not be too understanding about the kids' resistance. Can I just use a sample calendar for this - like PE, Art, Music and Health - to show we have been doing the subjects?

2. How many samples - 2-3, or so, and does it need to be per week or just overall from throughout the semester?

3. We are considering moving to another county but due to the weirdness of the timing for when our lease is up we would probably be doing this before the 2nd portfolio review. Anyone else done this? Do you mention anything to the reviewer or simply just move and let them know after the fact?

Thanks!

 

[crabe.mamabookworm]

Hi. I live in MD (Balto. Co.) and am working on getting my daughters' homeschool portfolios ready for their reviews on Monday.

1. I have a bunch of workbooks and other stuff but I am concerned about the subjects I can't use books to show - PE was a hard one this year, the kids resisted a lot and I was doing the hsing w/o my husband for the first time (I was laid off in June so I have taken over the hsing from him since he started working a PT job) so I have had a steep learning curve - transitioning to being home AND to doing the teaching. I really don't want to have to put the kids in public school but I am concerned that the reviewer might not be too understanding about the kids' resistance. Can I just use a sample calendar for this - like PE, Art, Music and Health - to show we have been doing the subjects?

2. How many samples - 2-3, or so, and does it need to be per week or just overall from throughout the semester?

3. We are considering moving to another county but due to the weirdness of the timing for when our lease is up we would probably be doing this before the 2nd portfolio review. Anyone else done this? Do you mention anything to the reviewer or simply just move and let them know after the fact?

Thanks!

BTW if you can answer I'd really appreciate it. Thanks.

 

[Nazsmum]

Welcome to MDC :grin: Come join us over to our Unschooling thread.

Do you have guidelines from the state? I am sorry that I can't more help.

 

[zebra15]

Im not in MD but isn't PE just everyday 'life', walking the dog, going to the park, playing outside, etc? Summer swims in the pool, playing with friends? PE doesn't have to be a structured thing, nor does art or anything else, heck video games are active and interactive, those count!. Art can be anything- legos are 'art', doodling is art, computer programming can be 'art'. Homeschooling is thinking outside the box and learning how to make your state requirements fit in that thinking.

that being said, i live in a no reporting state, no verify state etc so I never had to do anything until a created a transcript for my then 13yr old to apply to college- I must have done something correct because he was accepted and started classes right before his 14th bday.

 

[moominmamma]

I concur with zebra15, even though I'm in Canada in a place where I have had to report. PE, if my kids didn't happen to be involved in a structured/coached activity on a regular basis (eg. soccer, dance, gymnastics, martial arts), was just photos or narrative reports of them playing outside, sledding, riding their bikes, walking the dog, swinging from the pull-up bar, etc. etc. PE here includes health education, so I would sometimes comment on things like nutrition, body image and stress management if my child had learned something in those areas. Art meant weird stuff they constructed out of boxes and paper, or Playmobil villages they built, or stop-motion animations they made with plasticine on an iPad, or musical instruments played or choirs sung in.

Our portfolios were always submitted online, so multimedia was preferred. Links to YouTube videos, embedded photos, interspersed with narrative reports. I suppose if you have to hand physical paper in you could provide printed images from photos and URLs to any videos. For my umbrella school the expectation was that we provide enough information to allow our supervising teacher to write 3 bullet points on highlights of my child's learning in each subject area each term. No work samples were required of us, but I suppose if we had submitted work samples, that would have amounted to ~3 per school term.

But I have no idea what Maryland expects. Has your husband not been through this process before, even if you haven't? Could he advise you? Do you have any real-life or virtual contacts in your state?

Miranda

 

[crabe.mamabookworm]

Hi everyone. Thanks for your advice. I guess I have just been nervous because I have had so much on my plate lately. I've got something together so I am praying and hoping it will work out okay. My husband couldn't remember what we did last year - and he really did leave it all on my plate this time around so I was feeling a bit lost - but he helped me by letting me talk to him yesterday and today after he got off work so I could piece it together. Even if the reviewer didn't seem satisfied we would have 30 days to show we're meeting the requirements. However, I warned my kids that they and I both have to be better organized after this review and stay on top of things (though I really wish we could just move somewhere else where it'd be simpler, like OK where my sister lives - there you don't have to deal with the gov't at all, just teach for 180 days; it's all at the discretion of the parents how and what to teach, I think, thought of course it's best to do the subjects the schools do in case anyone does question or you decide to put the kids in private or public school.)

 

[moominmamma]

So how did it go?

Miranda

 

[Nazsmum]

I was wondering too. :nerd: