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 My name in Melanie, I am the creator and co-founder of From The Pond. I am a fully qualified and practising primary school teacher. I completed a double degree in 2000, specialising in Early Childhood Education.
For as long as I can remember I have been creating. Blessed with gifted parents, a perfectionist design engineer father and a wonderfully crafty, artistic and creative mother, my childhood was filled with long days of imaginative play and encouragement to create and explore my own abilities and interests.
I have always been interested in creating and teaching. Enter a career choice that saw me in sometimes very poorly resourced situations, and I did what came naturally – I created! When thirty little faces looked up at me, in a very empty classroom, with all but a few sticks of chalk and a couple of pairs of scissors, I quickly realised I needed some good quality, effective and reasonably priced resources!
Drawing on all my experiences and the interests and talents I have nurtured since childhood, I am having lots of fun designing this very special and growing collection of resources specifically for From the Pond. With the help of my beautiful sister Karen, we originally sold our resources on eBay. We have grown and developed with the support of hundreds of school teachers around the country. These teachers have given me wonderfully positive feedback and encouraged me to go further with my dreams.
My husband Brett is the other co-founder of From the Pond and has been the most wonderful person to accompany me on this journey. He has amazing talents in all aspects of business accounting and administration. He is the number cruncher, the secretary and the big solid rock that supports me and holds everything together.
Together we are having great fun making these resources available, so that you can have some very effective and practical teaching resources at your fingertips. Please join our newsletter subscription so we can send you up-to-date information regarding our products and teaching and learning in general. Email us with your ideas and comments; we would love to have your feedback.
So where did the name come from? Well, it's a very long and involved story, but I will try to keep it simple! The cute little frog was born from our original business that my sister and I started. We took the L and B from our surnames and came up with the slogan Leaps'n'Bounds with our frog representing our combined names. When we decided to evolve and change our business name, I wanted to include something from my dutch maiden name - part of which translates to From the. And so, From the Pond was born! It incorporates my past, my present and future. Most importantly it reminds me of my whole family, the special people that have shaped who I am. Who would have thought a little green frog could stand for so much?!
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