Collaborative Classroom Literacy Kits are available for purchase to further support independent learning activities for students in SIPPS (Beginning or Extension Levels) or Being a Reader (Kindergarten or First Grade).
Collaborative Classroom and Hand2Mind have partnered to curate a supplemental phonics manipulative kit. This kit is a valuable resource for building literacy skills with young readers and writers. These materials allow students to engage in meaningful literacy activities during independent work time and help to set a strong foundation to foster a love of reading and writing. The kit provides materials for small groups of up to six students. This guide will help you understand how to make the most of the resources included in your literacy kit. Engage in the following steps:
1) Watch the Collaborative Classroom Literacy Kit Unboxing Video to become familiar with the materials.
2) Unpack and become familiar with the literacy kit materials. Your literacy kit includes:
- Letter Word Puzzle
- Letter Tracing Sensory Pad
- Magnetic Dry Erase Activity Trays
- Magnetic Foam Letters (Lowercase and Uppercase)
- Stamp Set of Letters (Lowercase and Uppercase)
- Alphabet Puzzle Cards (Lowercase and Uppercase)
- Elkonin Boxes
- Phoneme Phone
- Phonics Word-Building Magnetic Tiles
3) Consider how to best organize the literacy kit materials.
- Can materials be grouped together in a plastic bag, bin, or box?
- How should the bins/materials be labeled to allow students to easily access them and clean up independently?
- Where is the best place for storage of the literacy kit materials so students can easily access them and clean up independently?
4) Provide additional materials to support independent work activities such as the following:
- Toolboxes for each student to store reading books, word work folders, and other independent work materials (e.g., box, book bin, magazine file, cereal box, or large resealable plastic bag)
- Different types of paper (e.g., blank paper, writing paper, construction paper, index cards, self-stick notes, sentence strips)
- Different writing utensils (e.g., pencils, colored pencils, highlighters, markers)
- Collaborative Classroom program materials (e.g., letter cards, word cards, etc.)
5) Introduce procedures for independent work and build stamina for students to work independently for the suggested times below. It generally takes four to six weeks for students to develop enough stamina to work independently. Collaborative Classroom program recommendations include the following:
- Kindergarten students will need to be able to work independently for up to 45 minutes.
- Grades 1 and 2 students will need to be able to work independently for up to 60 minutes.
See your Collaborative Classroom program materials for additional guidance.
6) Review below the suggested activities for the included materials.
7) Visit the Collaborative Classroom Support Center to browse a collection of program-specific content articles or use the search feature to find answers to frequently asked questions. The Support Center can be accessed by selecting "Support" at the top the Learning Portal home page.