Ancient History Portfolio
Reviewed by Jolene Underwood
The Home School Source
TheHomeSchoolSource.com

       Do you desire your children to have a keepsake of their history studies? Will you do a timeline book, a scrapbook, a portfolio or lap books? How will you put it together without it getting too complicated? Have you tried unsuccessfully before and you want something that can easily be finished and still look nice? These are the types of concerns Barbara Shukin faced and as she says, "after trial and error" she developed the History Portfolio series.

Content
       What do you get in a History Portfolio? You get a spiral bound book with blank pages. Ok, well you really get quite a bit more than that! Each book uses heavy card stock so that it is durable and sturdy and the pages will not easily tear out of the binding. Each page includes a variety of different sized boxes and some pages include maps. (I will explain the boxes in further detail below.) In addition, you get various suggestions and resource ideas to help you and your child decide what to put on the pages.

       Barbara has also designated a set number of pages for each time period, broken out into commonly studied sections, as chapters of the book. For example, in the Ancient book, there are chapters for: First Civilizations, Ancient Near East, Ancient Bible Lands, Ancient Egypt, Ancient Greece & Ancient Rome. Each chapter includes one or more maps and several pages with a variety of lay outs.

       At the back of the book are six pages that can be taken out and used as a timeline. The timeline for the Ancient book shows various regions (Europe, Africa and Asia) concurrently so that your child can fill in various civilizations according to their region and time period. When complete they will be able to see civilizations in different countries that developed and existed at the same time.

Those Boxes...What to Do?
       Well, that's what I asked! What would my son do with all those boxes? How would I know how to help him decide what to put in there? I am a very visual person and I need to have things laid out for me. An essentially empty page presents a challenge for me! However, I did need to remember that my son would be filling out these pages and he might have better ideas than I, yet I still wanted to guide him.

       One layout in the book has a large empty box filling a little more than the top half of the page and two smaller boxes under it. Another page has three boxes in a column on the left and a larger single box on the right with a line in the top portion. These smaller boxes can be used for drawings, pasted pictures, foldouts and more. The boxes with lines in the upper portion are designed for reports or written narrations.

       To assist you and your child with ideas for reports, narrations and drawings Barbara has provided several different resources. The Table of Contents lists various report and drawing suggestions under each chapter heading. In the back of the book Barbara has included Book Recommendations for your student's studies as well as a list of Topics for Narrations & Reports. In addition, on the website Barbara has provided a Teacher's Guide which includes samples of the maps colored in (helpful if you do not own an atlas or if you wish to double check the locations before having them filled in) as well as completed sample pages. Currently the Teachers Guide is available for the Ancient History version and the others will be posted as available. All of these are great ways to help you know just what to do with those boxes!

Putting It To Use...
       Since I have the benefit of my 12yos already working in his portfolio, let me share with you how we are going about it. I reviewed the suggestions listed in both the Table of Contents and the Topics for Narration & Report in the back of the book, then reviewed what we had covered. Next I decided what he could cover, in a general way, in his book on each page and let him decide what specifically to put in the boxes. For example, through the First Civilizations chapter, I had a sticky note on each page reading: Archaeology, Creation, Flood and so on. I left the drawing and report choices up to him. This is where, as Jessica Hulcy, author of Konos, would say, "Put on the gags and handcuffs!" In other words, be quiet mom (or dad) and keep your hands off the book! Let your child creatively express what he has learned. Ohh...not so easy to do for me, but it is paying off. So far, my son has come up with a very interesting drawing of the Garden of Eden (which includes enormous fruits and vegetables because, after all, this was Paradise on earth right??) and a shark created on the 4th day saying to a little clown fish, "Fish are friends, not food!"        The report sections are great for incorporating English and Composition skills in your child's studies. Each day he writes a report for his portfolio is a day he doesn't do his traditional Language Arts lessons. We get to review what he's learned in History and work on his grammar, spelling and composition skills at the same time. In addition, because he struggles in this area, having only a part of a page for each report is much less scary and frustrating for him to complete. Therefore, he feels as if he can accomplish more and we are both happy.

Who Can Use This? Pros & Cons...
       This book is great for many different families and can be used with many different curriculum choices. It is great to have a resource that fits with so many options since there are so many out there. Whether you follow unschooling methods, unit studies, literature based studies or textbook studies, if you are covering Ancient History from a Biblical perspective, then this can work for you. (I suppose you could use it if you were not including the people of Israel and their part in History, but you would miss a full chapter of the Portfolio not to mention an important part of our history.) In addition, it is versatile in that you (and your child(ren)) can choose whatever drawings or other information you wish to include in each section.

       The portfolio is a great option for people who want something nicely put together, orderly in fashion and durable. Your child's work will seem more professionally completed on the heavy card stock and in the organized boxes. Having the boxes for drawings and reports already laid out provides a guideline and helps to keep the material orderly. In addition, because there are a limited number of pages in each chapter, it is more likely that your child will be able to complete the book without feeling overwhelmed. Because of the format of the book, the heavy pages and the sturdy covers, when your child completes the book he or she is likely to have a beautiful keepsake that both of you will want to keep for years to come.

       If you and/or your child are the type of person that likes to have as much flexibility as possible and desire to complete more hands on projects or scrapbooking for a portfolio collection than this may not be a good option for you. Because there are a certain number of pages in each section, you cannot easily add pages to suit your needs. You are limited to the pages in the book and the format already laid out for you, therefore, there are a limited number of report sections, boxes for drawings etc. for each chapter. This can be inhibiting to some ambitious people, but quite a benefit for others. For many, I think that having a limited number of pages is helpful to keep things organized, make it more doable and makes it more likely that the book will get completed.

Final Notes
       Still not sure? Interest piqued? Check out more information such as: sample pages, ideas and more details on what the books include at Barbara Shukin's website, www.historyportfolio.com Three volumes are currently available in our book store: Ancient History, Medieval and Renaissance. A Modern History portfolio is still in the works and information will be posted as available.

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