In the Hands of A Child Review

Vendor:  In the Hands of a Child 

Product: Pond Life

Age: K- 2nd

Price: Regular $12.00 currently on special for $5.00

We are new to the whole lap book world so this was defiantly a new challenge for us.  Pond life teaches about ponds and the things in them and around them.  It helps teach that the ecosystem it makes that homes animals and plants and how these things help each other live as well.  The packet comes with a 5 day planning guide, reading list, hands on activities, and a 7 page research guide.  This was nice to have pretty much everything laid out for you. 

 You first learn about how ponds come about, which really interested the kids.  It tells about the animals in the ponds as well, lucky we live next to one and got to see some for ourselves. I liked that some parts went more in depth like having the scientific classifications of frogs.  Though this was over the younger kids heads it was goo learning for the higher end of the age range.  They also have a vocabulary list.  Those I thought made some good bonus spelling words as well.

The packet is 70 pages long so be sure to look it over and only print the pages in the middle so that you do no waste paper or ink.  The instructions can easily be read from the computer.  However the good thing with this is that all instructions are very well detailed.  There are also picture images to show you how to set up the folders as well to get started.  These were all things we loved since it was our first.  We followed the plan that was given in the instructions on what sections to work on each day as well.

This was a really fun thing to work on and we learned so much.  We are going to save it back and revisit it when we get to life cycles again in our new science curriculum.  I think it is a great learning tool all on its own as maybe a unit study activity or even an add on to what you are learning in another curriculum.

The parts that I didn't like or that I thought could be different are just a few.  I think that it would have been nice to save ink and paper to not have the traceable words on the same page as the pre-written. I think if they were separate I would have only had to print part of it and save the ink, versus printing it all and throwing the one I didn't use away.  Also the pictures were all nice an fun but also ink drainers, especially in black and white as they were not very clear anyways when printed.  Those would be my main suggestions from me since I school on a tight budget and saving ink and paper is a big deal.