by Barbara Shukin
The History Portfolio Series encourages rigorous study and plenty of creativity while providing a compact and handsome way of keeping and storing a student's own written projects and reports, colorful drawings, photographs, clippings, downloaded images... anything that can fit between the pages! Each book is designed for use by an individual, child or adult, and will become a unique record of the student's "journey through history".
The History Portfolio Series: Beautiful history books of the student's own making, something to refer to later as the student's interests grow and expand, and above all, books to treasure.
In each of the four volumes of the History Portfolio Series a Table of Contents provides a comprehensive guide to ensure that important subjects are covered. The table of contents organizes history into topics, and even suggests ideas for filling in pages of the Portfolio. Main topics include specific works of literature, important people, works of art and architecture, important names and events in history, plus advances in science and technology. Think of the table of contents as a history spine for you to rely on.
The body of the Portfolio is divided into chapters of commonly studied time periods. For example, in the Ancient Portfolio there are chapters for: First Civilizations, Ancient Near East, Ancient Bible Lands, Ancient Egypt, Ancient Greece & Ancient Rome. Along with one or more black-line maps of the regions being studied, each chapter contains an entirely unique system of "image boxes" and "text boxes". The attractively formatted pages support and showcase the student work, whether hand or type written text, hand drawn images, graphs, diagrams, photographs, or images accessed from the worldwide web... the choice is entirely up to you and your student.
There are several resources in the Portfolio - in addition to the table of contents - that will help with filling in the boxes, including Topics for Narrations and Reports and Important Dates and Events. You can rely on the Book Recommenations resource to steer you to some very high quality literature. Here you will find titles of books written by authors who are passionate about their subjects, and often speak directly to the reader in a simple, conversational style. The bibliography also has an ample list of historical fiction titles to supplement your studies with exciting stories that can bring the time period to life.
And finally, an essential part of the Portfolio is the uniquely designed accordion-fold Timeline for creative coloring and labeling. The timeline is modeled after the Wall Chart of World History, in which each culture or empire has its own strand, running parallel from left to right. This approach allows the student to clearly see, and compare, what was happening during the same time in different parts of the world. For more sample pages and recommended resources visit Homeschool Journey.
Completed Sample Pages (example only)
