Everything about Preschool Children's Portfolios

Hello readers, Today Aliya would to love to share with you Everything about Children’s portfolios you should know - what, how and Why’s. So let’s begin.

What are children portfolios?

Children’s portfolios become a very important tool for you as teachers. It helps you to  track the progress and performance of individual child in your class. The portfolios can be customised as per your choice. It can include anecdotal records, worksheets, photographs and art work based on learning objectives set for the program.

Why do we need a portfolio?

Portfolios not just help to track the progress but it also proves to be a decent communication tool. So not just you can track the achievements of the children by the end of the year but you can also share with parents to help them understand their children better.

What developmental areas can be assessed using portfolios?

All the developmental areas and learning goals can be addressed in the portfolios.

Motor development: There are numerous ways in which the motor development can be recorded in child’s portfolios. During the outdoor play, I often grab the opportunity to click some photographs that depicts a milestone, for example climbing up the play gym independently. You can also track the find motor development through a checklist with some valid evidence again like a photograph of a child zipping his jacket or lacing his shoes. I also retain a sample of cut and paste activity in the child’s portfolio.

Cognitive development: Cognitive development happens during circle times or Free play where they get an opportunity to interact with different set of equipment and games. Hold on to such moments to snap it up or write down their observations in the form of anecdotal records.

Social emotional development: Anecdotal records works the best for this area of development. You can record your observations about children’s participation and interaction in class with you or their fellow classmates. Their learning to share resources or taking turns can be recorded through a milestone checklist.

Language and math skills: Literacy and math again becomes an integral part of free play and circle time. So again, observations and anecdotal records can work for you. As evidence you can also restore their worksheets in the portfolio. You can also keep a piece written by the child, for example his own name or numbers.

Creative skills: the best way to record these are art activities pieces by the child or photographs of activities like drama, dance and more. You can also possibly videotape all the performances and put it in the DVD and add it to the portfolio.

How do portfolios help in planning further ?

Portfolios are time consuming. If you have 10 kids in your class, you need to create 10 portfolios, which can consume much of your time and energy. But why invest so much and is that worth it?

Portfolios can be an amazing thing for the parents as well as for you. It can totally help an individual understand the progress and growth of the child. Maintaining the portfolios after every theme can help you understand the child better and there on you can also plan specific activities in the area where the child needs more help. If you are aware where does the child lack, you can also highlight it to parents so they can engage their child more in that area of development even at home. For example, one of my student, Maisha was weak in tracing,. Hence, I ensured that she gets more opportunities during free play to work at literacy areas and asked her parents to provide her with salt tray to help her with tracing.

How do I organise and manage my portfolios?

Aliya has chunk of ideas to share with you on how she organises, manages and maintains her children’s portfolios. Stay tuned for more ideas from her on portfolios.

Also, here is a small portfolio template by Aliya for all you educators out there.

Download it here.

Stay connected. Happy reading!!!