If you’re a homeschooling parent, you’ve likely heard of In the Hands of a Child. It started in 2002 with Kimm Bellotto and Niki McNeil, 2 homeschooling moms themselves who were tired of searching for information and things that their own children needed to complete their lapbooks. They came together to form their own company that sells ready-to-make lapbook kits. There are currently 13 categories of lapbooking and notebooking products available on their website. The lapbook kits include a study guide, mini-book templates, answer keys, and easy-to-follow instructions on how to put the lapbook together and use the materials included. They also offer Note Packs for notebooking, although this isn’t anything we’ve ever used before. We have done several lapbooks in the past. For this review, we received the Kitchen Science lapbook kit. It’s currently on sale for $5. Regular price is $12 and it’s for grades K-3rd. I’m not really sure how long this kit will be on sale.
The Kitchen Science lapbook kit is 68 pages total. It contains 15 activities, 8 experiment ideas, 13 vocabulary words, related reading, and a bibliography. This particular lapbook kit is about how kitchens and science labs are both alike and different. It’s designed to be completed in 5 days’ time, and everything is broken down for you, if you wish to follow the Planning Guide. The kit suggests that you print on colored paper, but to save money, I just printed everything out on regular paper, and I’ll have the kids color in the pictures.
For this lapbook, we chose to make a regular base lapbook with double extensions, and this took 3 file folders total. I have never made a lapbook like this before. It’s really neat! You can build these however you wish. Generally they’re made with 2 file folders. I don’t know how others put theirs together, but I staple mine, because nothing else would last in this house.
This is a front view with the top extension flap lifted.
Here is a view with both front and back extensions at the top.
The most basic things you need to put together a lapbook are:
- Manilla File Folders (you could also use colored if you wanted)
- Glue
- Scissors
- Brads
- Templates/Graphics pertaining to your lapbook subject
To conduct the experiments for this lapbook, some additional items you need are:
- 2 eggs
- baking soda
- vinegar
- apples
- oranges
- peaches
- avocados
- balloons
- bottle
- onions
- marshmallows
- potatoes
The Kitchen Science lapbook deals with “exploring chemical reactions, oxidation, heat, and density.” There are 4 pages of information on these subjects. The kids and I sat down 1 day and I read these pages aloud. The vocabulary words are scattered throughout in bold, so I would explain their definitions as we went along. There were of course some things they already knew, but a review is always a good thing. Some of the cut-out templates feature a question/answer, with the answers either printed in dotted lines to be traced, or just regular print to simply glue in.
We didn’t really follow the schedule; most of the experiments were done in a couple of days. The one the kids were most impressed with was the balloon experiment. *I can’t give away everything! 😛 The kids all helped with the experiments, but when it came time to put the lapbook together, Lucas was the one who wanted to help glue everything in. I was impressed that the kids were taking noted when I was reading aloud the Kitchen/Science lab info. What’s the difference between a kitchen and science lab? Well, scientists heat things to make chemical reactions happen faster, and cooks heat foods to make them easier to digest.
Our family really enjoyed the Kitchen Science project pack. It was a lot of fun to put together and learn. If you’re looking for some project pack/lapbook ideas, be sure to check out In the Hands of a Child!
Click below to read review from other Crew Members.
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