A couple of weeks ago, as my faithful readers know, I won a lap book from In the Hands of a Child. I have been doing a diary-type review of what I won, a preschool/early elementary lap book on zebras. Each time I write, I send the link to today’s Wednesday’s Woman, and she always has a sweet, gracious comment in return. Dr. H LOVES working on his lap book, and I see many lap books in his future! And now, here is Niki in her own words.
My wonderful husband and I live in Michigan’s Great Southwest just miles from the Lake where I was born and raised. We have 3 amazing kids. Bryce is the oldest at nearly 15 and still enjoys legos, nerf guns, and volunteering at the local nature center. Olivia is my girly girl at 11 and often called a mini me. She enjoys anything crafty and creative. Farrah is my youngest and always wants to be seen and heard! She’s 9 and has already performed in 5 large scale musicals; she inspires me often to step out of my comfort zone.
Previous to being a stay at home mom and then a homeschooling mom I taught preschool where my love of hands on teaching was born. At that time Bryce was a wee one and attended class with me. I found that if I could put it in their hands and show them very tangibly what I was teaching them they learned it and better yet remembered it weeks later. From then on I was on the search for fun and exciting ways to teach and learn. Unfortunately there was not a ton of stuff out there in the late 90s, most of what I came up with became my own creations that were inspired by something I saw elsewhere.
When my husband and I decided to home school I naturally carried this style of learning home with us. The older the kids got the harder it was to find products to help the love of learning continue, which is how we began lapbooking. Our first year of home schooling was a difficult one as while trying to make it fun I also tried to do school at home. This did not work for Bryce or me! Once I threw in the towel with the textbooks and started learning the way we had been all along magic happened. My suggestion to anyone is have fun with what you are teaching, learn alongside your children, and listen to them. Together this is the perfect environment for loving learning!
Now for the story of how my company, In the Hands of a Child, started. Maybe my story will inspire you to try something new with your child, whether or not you are home schooling, and perhaps it will also inspire you to use your talents in an entrepreneurial way.
In the Hands of a Child began in 2002 when two home schooling moms found themselves constantly searching for the right graphics and information for their children to complete lapbooks and trying to answer the question, “What exactly is a lapbook?” Kimm Bellotto and Niki McNeil met through an online home school email list and after chatting, they soon discovered that they both loved lapbooks and were both looking for an easier way for home schooling moms to pull together the necessary items for a lapbook. Those chats soon turned into a business plan and the two of them quietly “set-up shop” on the web becoming the first company to sell ready-to-use lapbook kits. With Niki’s creative ideas and Kimm’s creative graphics abilities, the two moms published their first unit in November 2002, titled “Plants”.
At first the only people who even knew they existed, outside of their families, was a small circle of online friends from a home school support egroup. These moms began using the product and spreading the word to other home schooling moms and slowly, but steadily, the business began to grow to what is now an internationally recognized company in the home schooling community.
Niki and Katie met through a mutual scrapbooking hobby and when Niki mentioned that she and Kimm were looking for additional writers, the “inner author” inside Katie jumped at the chance! In 2005, she joined In the Hands of a Child as an author/researcher and then as a partner in the growing business. Today, the three of us share equal responsibilities, each bringing unique qualities and talents to the business with one goal in mind, to provide quality lapbooking materials for all educators, while serving the homeschooling moms looking for an easier way to put laughter and learning together in the hands of their children. We aim to help parents of all age and skill levels, ranging from Preschool to High School, with the use of just one product.
In the Hands of a Child has been greatly impacted by the home schooling community. The vast majority of customers who purchase materials from our company are home schoolers. In addition, the three of us have built a strong link of communication and mutual friendship with many of our customers through our on-line chats, on-line co-op groups, and yahoo email groups. We are more than grateful to be blessed with such wonderful customers and friends as the ones from the home school community that make up our large, international customer base. While we often hear what a wonderful addition our company has been to the home schooling community, we are forever indebted to them for our tremendous success as a company.
Before In the Hands of a Child made its debut, home schoolers had to do all of the preparation in order to pull together a lapbook. That task takes a lot of time and money spent on buying items and/or graphics that may not be used again. Many home schoolers do not have the time or the resources to complete this for every unit study in their curriculum. Knowing how much our own children learned and enjoyed learning in this style, we knew we could meet a need for home schoolers who want to put more of a hands-on spin to their schooling but are daunted by the task. We took the preparation time out of the parent/teacher job description and allowed parents to focus on the learning experience.
As the benefits of lapbooking become more well-known in the home school arena, our business continues to blossom with more and more home schooling parents looking for a simpler way to incorporate lapbooks into their daily learning experience. They come to us with relief because we are saving them from endless searches and confusing decisions about miniature books and graphic organizers, and we are giving them the opportunity to complete a project with their children that doesn’t require so much preparation that the joy fizzles out, for both mom and student. In addition to that, we offer custom made Lapbooking Project Packs that allow the customer the option to name the topic and grade level of the unit. We complete this within a 3-week time frame allowing customers to study a wide variety of topics of their choice, whether it is Disneyland before an upcoming vacation or The United States Navy before Uncle Greg deploys to serve our country. This is truly a one-of- a- kind service for our customers, and our custom orders have more then doubled since we began offering them.
Customers call, write, and email us on a daily basis with comments like, “This is my first year home schooling, and it has been overwhelmingly stressful trying to research all that is available and then determining what would work best for my daughter. She is a very hands on crafty kid and worksheets just bored her. A lot of the curriculum available for purchase just didn’t have enough hands on activities to satisfy her and she dreaded ‘school time’. I was so elated to find your site, bought all the preschool project packs that were available at the time… and got started right away. My daughter loved them so much she even asked to do ‘school’ on Saturday and Sunday. I was elated. Thank you for making these wonderful resources available to us.”
Together, we have published over 400 project packs, and we continue to release new ones on a weekly basis. In addition, we have added other products to our company including lapbooking supplies, sticker books, coloring books, and much more. The success of our business can be directly related to the support of the home schooling moms and children out there who use our products and continue to tell others about our company and the type of curriculum we have to offer. It is through their words, their testimonials and their efforts that we continue to grow.
Please visit our website at
www.handsofachild.com. While you’re there, check out the “Freebie” tab and sign up for our newsletter! We’re having a big celebration this coming weekend to celebrate our 400th project pack.
“Like” us on Facebook, and you can follow all the exciting news and prizes!
If you haven’t read Many Hats Mommy’s experience with lapbooking, you can get started here.
