Fourth graders have a unique way of storing all of their work in Michele Anszelowicz’s class at Forest Lake Elementary School in the Wantagh School District. Their pizza box portfolios are filled with classwork and projects that reflect the vast amount of knowledge they have gained this year. 

Ms. Anszelowicz said that her students have been keeping portfolios for many years, although the containers have changed over time. The students bring home all of their work in June, rather than piecemeal throughout the year, so they can keep their fourth grade memories together.

“If it fits, it goes in,” Ms. Anszelowicz said, noting that the portfolios are already filled with dozens of pieces of work just beyond the halfway point of the school year. 

Work from every subject area is in the pizza box portfolios, from math worksheets to writing pieces to their weather research projects. To keep her classroom displays current, student work comes down from the walls and bulletin boards every few weeks and new work goes up. The old items are handed out to the students to update their portfolios.

Students are very proud of the work, and enjoy looking back on it from time to time. Adam Abdelkarim’s favorite project was a 3D model of a river, while Julianna Clark’s most prized item is her personal narrative piece.

“It was the first story that I wrote and I got to tell about something that happened in my life,” Julianna said. “It was a lot of hard work.”