How can I order a kit using a purchase order? Please contact Amy Rea, (amy@sajaifoundation.org, 952-288-3364) for setting up an order with a purchase order.
Can I use a credit card? Yes, if you have a PayPal account. Those orders can be done on our website here.
My site has more than 30/less than 100 kids. How do I get a kit that’s the right size? We’re happy to help customize to your needs. On the kit pages [LINK], you’ll see there are components available as add-on purchases. For example, you can but a 50-child add-on kit, or you can buy sets of 10 workbooks to use with a small or large site kit. Please contact Amy, and she’ll work with you for the best solution.
How long does it take to get a kit? Once we receive your order, we need to have the signed purchase order (if using one) faxed to us to start the order process. After we’ve received the purchase order, or notification of payment via PayPal, we’ll ask you to fill out a quick online registration that allows us to set up the evaluation tool for you. Upon completion of the registration, your order will ship within 10 business days.
Can we just order the workbooks and training manual? The full kit is needed to run the program. The kits are designed to be turnkey, meaning they have all the components necessary for you to begin running the program immediately. Without those components, you’d either have to abandon some of the lessons, or buy materials separately. That’s why our policy is to have sites use only full kits when starting out. But please read the next question!
If we want to run the program more than once, do we have to buy another full kit? No. The initial purchase of the kit acts as a long-term investment, because many of the components in the kits are meant to be kept by your site and reused. Once you’ve purchased a full kit, you can simply order refills on the items, like the workbooks, that can’t be reused.
Can we buy the Wise Kids 2 program first, since it’s less expensive than Wise Kids 1? Because Wise Kids 2 delves more deeply into topics covered in Wise Kids 1, and because some of the components of Wise Kids 1 are used in Wise Kids 2, you need to use Wise Kids 1 first. The lessons will not fully make sense if Wise Kids 1 hasn’t been used before Wise Kids 2 is implemented.
Running the Program
Can we charge a fee to participants to be in the program? Yes. How much depends on your program and needs. Typically it’s part of an existing program fee, although the fee may need to be increased slightly to cover the additional funding needed.
Can we do more than one lesson at a time? You can, but depending on the ages of the children and the size of your group, it might make the lessons less effective. Also, many of the lessons are designed to build on each other, so running them simultaneously might lead to confusion.
How often should we run the Wise Kids 1/Wise Kids 2 lessons? How long does each lesson last? The programs are designed to give you a lot of flexibility in terms of how often and how long. We recommend that you plan to run each Wise Kids 1 and 2 lesson for one hour twice a week, with half the time divided between the workbooks/learning activities and the physical activity. We do know that many sites end up running the physical activity parts longer than 30 minutes, because the kids are having so much fun! You could run the lessons daily—and there have been sites that have done that—but with only nine lessons, that doesn’t give much time for the kids to absorb the lessons and really work on changing their daily behavior. The ideal is one lesson per week, with two sessions on that lesson each week.
How often should we run the Wise Kids Outdoors lessons? How long does each mission last? Like Wise Kids 1/Wise Kids 2, Wise Kids Outdoors lessons are formatted to last a minimum of one hour, divided between learning activities and outdoor exploration. And like the other Wise Kids programs, many sites have found that they can easily extend the outdoor exploration time, because the kids enjoy it. In fact, we strongly encourage Wise Kids Outdoors program leaders to allow for extra time, and view that time as free exploration rather than a guided lesson. You’ll be amazed what kids will find and became enthralled with when allowed to explore freely.
Do program leaders have to be trained in fitness or nutrition? Not at all! All the Wise Kids programs were developed specifically for the non-expert. The training materials go through each lesson, explaining the science and background of each concept and giving ideas of how to answer questions. The programs have been run successfully by seasoned and teenage program leaders alike, who had plenty of enthusiasm and no need for a Ph.D. in exercise physiology or years of work as a naturalist.
Does the program include training materials? Yes. The programs all include a training manual that goes through each lesson in detail, as well as general discussion of how to lead these types of programs, and a training CD that can be used as a group training guide.
How much time does it take to train staff? You can expect to spend 2-3 hours, using the training manuals and the CD.
What’s on the marketing CD? All sorts of useful things, including parent newsletters (in English and Spanish) that the kids can take home to inform and engage their families in what they’re learning and press releases that can be used to generate awareness for the wonderful work your site is doing.
Is there anything to share with parents? Each kit comes with a marketing CD, which, among other things, has family newsletters about the program you can print and send home.
Is the program available in any language besides English? Right now, the parent newsletters for each program are available in Spanish, but not the actual curriculum.
Is it OK to localize and/or tweak the lessons and activities? Absolutely! You know your community, and you know the children. If there’s a park with a naturalist nearby who could give the kids a tour, go for it! There’s no way we could think of every possible variation on the activities, and we’ve heard great stories from sites that showed a lot of creativity and ingenuity. And sometimes, it’s the kids who make suggestions that turn out to be great.
We put up a sign-up sheet for Wise Kids 1, but didn’t get enough kids signed up. How do we get more kids to join? Realistically, kids aren’t likely to voluntarily sign up for a program to learn how to live more healthfully. For Wise Kids 1/Wise Kids 2 to really be successful, it’s best if they’re implemented as part of an existing program. Once the kids start the program, they tend to really like it.
Program Evaluation Tool What is the program evaluation tool? It’s a concrete way to measure what the kids learn and which behaviors and attitudes may be changing as a result of participating in a Wise Kids program. Basically, the kids take a survey before the program, and then again at the end, and the results are tabulated in a report that shows the before-and-after differences.
Does the evaluation tool cost extra? Do we get to see the report? No and yes! The evaluation tool is part of the Wise Kids kit, so there’s no extra cost at all. The report is delivered a few weeks after you complete the surveys, and a Sajai Foundation staff person will set up a conference call to discuss the results with you (again, no additional charge for that).
Your site says the evaluation tool is web-based, but we don’t have computers for the kids to use at our site. Does that mean we can’t use the tool? Not at all. We send you the online link to the survey along with a PDF that you can print out for the kids to fill out by hand. In fact, most sites have done the surveys this way, then have a staff person go online to enter the surveys.
Can’t we just send the paper surveys to you to enter for us? As much as we’d like to help you, we’re simply not equipped to enter thousands of surveys online, so that must be done on your end.
What’s the point of doing the surveys? It’s a great way to track progress in reaching kids, and the results can be used when applying for grants and for showcasing your organization as a site that is actively working to provide quality programming and health and wellness education to kids.
What if we’re running the program at multiple sites? You have a couple of options: you can either have all the surveys entered into one location, generating a report that includes all the sites, or we can create separate surveys for each site, allowing you to see how each site did individually. We’d recommend the latter approach, as it allows you to really understand the role each site plays. There is no extra charge for setting up multiple site surveys.
Miscellaneous
Can we put our corporate sponsor’s logo on your Wise Kids Outdoors backpacks? We’d rather you didn’t, because then it looks as if we’re endorsing your sponsor. Maybe the sponsor would be willing to find another way to use their logo, such as providing t-shirts or hats.
Do you have a logo we could use for our program catalog? No problem! Contact Amy and she’ll send you a jpeg file.
Do you provide sample kits, or can we buy just one set of workbooks and a training manual? We can send out a sample lesson and training page, but we don’t provide sample kits or single sets, for copyright reasons.