Teaching Kit Production

About the kit

We have a standard kit for sale, using the new Marina Carlson animals. The kit includes lesson plans, materials for Animal-O, Geometric-O, Basketball-O, Clothespin-O, and miscellaneous additional materials.

Note that CPSD (Cambridge) has kits using the original animals. For more about that kit, follow this link.

Follow the steps below to create a kit:

1. Gather supplies, including printing and laminating if necessary

2. Assemble the kit

Manufacturing

Supplies

To create a kit, pull together the following supplies.

Kit components are stored in the equipment room, in a number of different plastic bins. Each is labeled with its contents.

Periodically, inventory the supplies; use the "Supplies Inventory" tab of this spreadsheet for this purpose.

1. For printing:

   1. Heavy (eg 28 lb) bright white paper

   2. Avery 5395 blank labels

   3. Sufficient toner

2. Clear packing tape on a dispenser

3. Orange flagging tape (small roll)

4. For animal streamers

   1. Orange flagging tape (for animal streamers), cut into 10 18" lengths

   2. Stapler

   3. Clear office tape

   4. 26 + 10 clothespins

5. 5 6x9 manila envelopes

6. 12 7" cones.

7. 2 quart-sized freezer bags

8. black permanent marker

9. pack of 3x5 blank index cards

10. pencil sharpener

11. Sterilite clear bin with lid

12. Shipping box (14 x 10 x 8) 

13. Laminated materials from our lamination vendor:

    1. 6 each of 6 5-animal and 4 10-animal clue sheets

    2. 10 animal pictures for streamers

    3. 10 animal pictures for cones, plus start & finish cards. 

14. Labels: If not already in stock, print Avery labels for envelopes and the kit itself: Animal-O 5 & 10 point clue sheets; Geometric-O 5-and 10-point maps; animal streamers; generic labels. Use Avery 5395 blank labels for printing. When printing, set the scale to "Custom" and 100%. 

15. Checklist of what goes into the kits; include this in the kit itself. Print from the "Contents" tab of this kit tracking spreadsheet.

16. In-house laminated materials: If not already in stock, print, cut, laminate and trim so that there is 1/4 inch of clear laminated material around the outside of the paper to make it waterproof. 

    1. 5 copies each of 6 5-control and 4 10-control Geometric-O maps: print, cut, laminate and trim from the 5- and 10-control PDFs in this folder. Place in labeled manila envelopes. When printing, use the setting "shrink to fit printable area" in the print dialog.

    2. All-controls Geometric-O map (2-sided; print from this PDF from this folder, double-sided, flip on long edge). This can be taped to the inside of the bin cover.

    3. 12 copies of the basketball-O maps (from this folder). When printing, use the setting "shrink to fit printable area" in the print dialog.

    4. All-controls basketball-O map with answer key (from this folder). This should be printed double-sided, flip on short edge.

    5. 7 lesson plan and info double-sided pages from this PDF.

Assembly

1. Tape the 12 small vendor-laminated animal pictures, start and finish to 12 7" cones.

2. Staple the 10 pieces of flagging tape to the 10 streamer animal pictures. Tape over the stapled area on both sides. Tie the other end of the streamer to a clothespin and wrap the streamer around the clothespin's "mouth" (open it to do this) several times. Then, close the clothespin and wrap the streamer the other way around the clothespin until there is just a short section left, and then open the clothespin's mouth to have it attach to the card for storage. Put the 10 animal streamers in one of the freezer bags and label it with the correct Avery label.

3. Label the 26 clothespins A-Z on both sides.

4. Put 25 Navigation Games pencils (hex golf pencils purchased from pens.com) and a pencil sharpener in a quart-sized freezer bag, along with the pencil sharpener.

5. Place the Animal-O, Geometric-O and basketball-O clue sheets and maps in 6x9 envelopes and label each envelope with the printed labels. There should be 5 envelopes. The all-controls maps for Geometric-O and Basketball-O can be loose in the kit, taped to the underside of the lid, or taped to the back of the 5-checkpoint manila envelopes.

6. In the bin, place the A-Z clothespins, 1 roll flagging tape, bagged pencils & sharpener, black marker, index cards, bagged animal streamers, 5 manila envelopes, 2 all-controls maps, and 7 narrow lesson plan "explainers".

7. Fold the mailing box, tape the bottom, and place the bin and 12 cones in the box.

Sales and shipping

Sales are made and orders tracked on Wix.com. 

Receive order

1. Receive an email into the Admin email saying that a kit has been ordered

2. Log order in kit spreadsheet: Go to "Orders" tab and update columns A - H

3. Confirm order received with client: Send "1 Email - Order Received"

4. Update spreadsheet: Order received email sent - add date to column I

5. Add card in Monday.com to "Kit Production" Project: ' Kit - Name of client - Make Kit'

6. Tell Maija that an order has come in, so that she can let the bookkeepers know

How to handle payment outside of Wix

If payment will be invoiced outside Wix.com, you should enter the order (via the Wix interface) in the following way so that the charge is $0:

• Select "Add new order"

• Select "Add product" - Add discount - Add billing address

• Once order saved:

  • Mark as Unfulfilled

  • Edit "Delivery Method" - Add free shipping option (select 2nd option, not the actual free shipping"

• Select "Print Shipping Label via USPS"

Shipping

1. On Wix.com, go to: Sales - Orders and select the order that needs to be sent. (Click on it to go to the order page.)

2. Click on the blue "Print Shipping Label" button. (If you don't have access to that, you can try editing the order and make sure there is a delivery address, and that you've selected free delivery.)

3. In the pop-up, fill in 14 x 10 x 8 inches and 5 lb for weight. Expand options and add shipment insurance for the value of items. Set the shipment date if it's not today the default). 

4. Print the packing slip and add to the box. Close and tape the box.

5. Print the shipping label and tape it to the outside of the box.

6. In Wix, mark the order "fulfilled". This should trigger an email to the customer.

7. Close the box and tape the shipping label onto the box

8. Drop the box off at a USPS post office

9. Confirm with the client that the kit has been sent - Send "2 Email - Kit Sent". 

10. Update spreadsheet: Kit sent - Add data to column J - L

11. Add card in Monday.com to "Kit Production" Project: 'Name of client - Schedule Consulting' and add details. Set due date to be 5 days away.

12. Shipping information can also be seen directly on Shippo website; log in with admin@navigationgames.org. From here you can track packages.

Schedule Training

1. Follow up with client every 5 days until training has been scheduled: Follow up by forwarding email #2

2. Once scheduled, send a Google Meet to the client and the person doing the training from "Navigation Games Staff" in the NG calendar.

3. Add card in Monday.com to "Kit Production" Project: 'Provide kit training - Name of client' and add the link to the 3 Kit Training Agenda. 

4. Add card in Monday.com to "Kit Production" Project: 'Send follow up email - Name of client'. Add the email as a link in the task. (https://docs.google.com/document/d/1y6oO2893TuyvxD1kqfhmn5NJFpa0ZGUVkWBBGWjMeMU/edit?usp=sharing) 

Consulting Call

1. Use the 3 Kit Training Agenda document for the consulting call

Consulting Call Follow Up

1. After the consulting call, send the final email 4 Post Training Email

Reference/Archive

Information for clients on making their own kit

Link to detailed information for assembling kits, suitable for clients (the page is not yet complete)

Pricing

As of 10/21/25, we charge $200 per kit. An analysis of cost is in the "Additional materials" tab of the spreadsheet; it costs approximately $140-$160 in materials and shipping, plus labor.

To explore selling partial kits, see this doc and the "Pricing" tab of this spreadsheet. Here is a 2023 slide deck relating to kits.

Source material - this section is just for reference

Google Drive Folder: Kit Sales and Process

• Folder: 2023 kit with Carlson Animals (June 2023)

  • Google doc: Materials for the Orienteering Unit

  • 2023 kits with Carlson animals: spreadsheet -- links to materials to print

• Slides: NG kits

• Kit labels (PDF)

• At Avery.com: Kit contents labels; Navigation Games labels (small, with address); Labels for envelopes and contents (example school; there are others)