When it comes to professional growth as an educator, you have a lot of choices to expand your skillset to help your students and further your goals, but your time is precious. From continuing education on social-emotional development and neuroscience, to tactical strategies for learning in the classroom, we at VariQuest have put together a list of some of our best professional development webinar and video opportunities for educators to help you fill your teaching toolbox with valuable resources and future-forming assets.

Depending on your particular requirements and budget, you may want to use hot or cold lamination to laminate materials. Items that are subject to cold lamination are placed under pressure, while hot laminating may damage certain items due to applied heat. Each technique, however, uses a film to laminate the material, and the strength of the lamination and its durability depend on the thickness of the film used. Lamination also provides wipe-clean surfaces for your materials, making them easy to frequently disinfect. At VariQuest, we offer an energy-efficient, easy-to-use cold lamination machine, the Cold Laminator 2510, to help you preserve and protect banners, posters, and bulletin board cutouts for repeated yearly use.

After the last two years being anything but normal, you might be on a constant quest for ideas and ways to support the social-emotional wellbeing of your students and boost their self-esteem. Social-emotional learning (SEL) has become a critical focus in helping our students grow not only personally, but academically as well. In partnership with Cathy Henry, an educator and founder of The Curriculum Corner and Free Word Work, we've created this Motivation Station Social-Emotional Lesson Plan activity to help spread a little positivity! And it's not only approaching the topic from a self-love standpoint, but encourages peer-to-peer support as well!

At VariQuest, we empower students and educators with effective teaching and learning aids to help them benefit in an enhanced classroom experience. From our selection of academic visual teaching tools, you can literally transform your classroom into another level of learning that achieves fantastic results. Visual aid posters in the classroom can make learning both fun and easy.

Have you ever wondered why we choose to work for VariQuest? We've got a whole team of dedicated employees and in our new promotional video series, #variquestvalue, you can hear their unique stories and perspective on our brand and the value our products and services bring to our customers!

We appreciate teachers, we appreciate principals, we appreciate admins, we appreciate paraprofessionals, we appreciate parent volunteers, and we appreciate all other school building staff members. Most importantly, we appreciate everyone who works tirelessly to educate and support the education of students. And we know educators and school staff appreciate all the help they can get. The VariQuest Perfecta® Poster Design System, Cutout Maker 1800 Digital Die-Cut System, and Motiva® 400 Specialty Printing System are tools designed to help educators and students create vibrant, colorful visual learning and promotional supports. Using the VariQuest Design Software containing thousands of templates, cutouts, graphics, fonts, and collections in our Engage Every Learner® Content, the possibilities are endless. And because there's so much to choose from, we've created a helpful tool to save time and make creating even easier - especially when you have help! VariQuest Customers can download and utilize our new work request forms, tailored to each VariQuest product, now available free for customers in the Teacher Resources section on the VariQuest Resource Center!

Put on annually by EdTech Digest, the 2022 EdTech Cool Tool Award Finalists and Winners have been announced, and we're pleased to share that VariQuest® was selected as a finalist in three of its categories! In its 12th year of existence, the US-based program is the world's largest program for recognizing education technology, featuring the biggest names in edtech – and those who soon will be. The 2022 EdTech Awards honored companies and individuals in 3 areas: the Cool Tool Awards, the Leadership Awards, and the Trendsetter Awards, featuring industry products, leaders, and innovators respectively. Entered in the Cool Tool Awards, VariQuest was honored among this year's finalists ranging in everything from data dashboards to artificial intelligence to interactive coding tools.

HAPPY BIRTHDAY WORLD! While we know every day is Earth Day, on April 22nd, we honor and celebrate this place we call home by demonstrating support to protect, respect and care for our planet. Founded in 1970, and celebrated by more than a billion people, Earth Day is a day to teach us about environmental issues and show partnership in making our world a happier, healthier place to live—giving Mother Earth the best birthday gift ever! This year's theme is, Invest in our planet, an all-encompassing movement to not only protect our planet, but also protect and preserve our health, our families and our livelihoods. To serve this mission we are all called upon, and as educators, that includes helping our students discover ways in which they can take personal action to help. After all, the future of our planet rests in their precious little hands.

Spring has recently sprung, which means some very important events are fast approaching! We want to make sure you are equipped with the tools you need to make preparations a breeze, which is why we are providing VariQuest® customers with a collection of all-new customizable templates for the upcoming prom and graduation seasons! Whether you need graduation banners, prom posters or personalized invitations, we’ve got you covered with all that and more in our Engage Every Learner® 2022 Prom & Graduation Expansion Pack!

Self-Awareness: the ability to see yourself clearly. How do others see me? How do I see myself? How are my actions being interpreted? Are my actions in line with the person I want to be perceived as? What are my strengths and weaknesses? How can I use those to make a positive impact? As children ask these questions to cultivate an understanding of how their choices, emotions, and actions affect the world around them, it is important we as educators help guide them in exercises to enhance their self-awareness, and of course, make learning about it fun! In this bonus installment of our social-emotional learning unit series, we spark discussion among students about what it means to be self-aware.