There are plenty of reasons and ways to recognize students. Doing so promotes self-confidence, determination, a positive attitude, and overall social-emotional wellbeing! In the age of cell phones, social media influencers, and YouTube stars, the word "selfie" has become commonly used in our vocabularies, and the concept is foreign to no one. Alongside displaying student artwork in your school hallways and classrooms, allow students to showcase work they're especially proud of, and infuse parental involvement in a modern way with this fun and easy selfie station in your classroom!

Traveling from classroom to classroom, assisting students, completing necessary documentation, and on top of their vital instruction and planning, these are the challenges that middle and high school special education teachers face every day. Creating schedules to meet varying needs and keeping well-organized notes and records is of the utmost importance, to avoid becoming overwhelmed. We've joined with Cathy Henry, founder and partner of The Curriculum Corner and Free Word Work and with a Master's Degree in Special Education, to bring you this toolkit complete with printable charts, posters, handouts, and more to assist you in organizing and managing your important workload.

If you are interested in purchasing a digital die-cutting machine, you may be wondering how to select the best option for your needs. Die-cutting machines are exceptional tools for everyone from crafters to professional businesses, to teachers and students. Below, we provide some key tips for choosing the optimum digital die cut machine for your applications. At VariQuest, we offer the Cutout Maker 1800, a high quality die-cutting machine ideal for the classroom.

We tend to think of visual cues as supportive tools for students with special needs or for English language learners, but sets of visual prompts can also be helpful to students outside of these groups, and especially important for classroom management. This concept might relate to a direction in the classroom, a recognition of desired behavior, or a redirection.

Chinese New Year, also known as the Spring Festival, has been celebrated for thousands of years. It is one of the most important holidays widely celebrated in many Asian countries and territories including Mainland China, Hong Kong, Macau, Taiwan, Vietnam, Malaysia, Singapore, Korea, Thailand. Usually falling between January 21st and February 20th, this year's start of the Chinese New Year will occur on Tuesday, February 1st, and is the Year of the Tiger. The celebration lasts for about 15 days. Gung Hay Fat Choy is a common Chinese New Year’s greeting in Chinese Cantonese, which means “wishing you great happiness and prosperity.” On Chinese New Year, the themes of happiness, wealth, longevity, luck and good fortune are celebrated. Some of the traditional celebrations include family gatherings, visiting friends and relatives (baai nin), exchanging “lucky money” contained in red envelopes (lai see), decorating homes with paper decorations and scrolls, lion dances, and fireworks. Chinese New Year is a special holiday to celebrate with your class while teaching them others’ cultures and comparing them to American traditions. We have put together a collection of fun, hands-on and Common Core-aligned lessons and activities, classroom decorations, and craft projects for you to explore and enjoy with your class, and I want to share them with you!

We're used to seeing them everywhere now - not just as lines on a basketball court for gym class, but where to stand for social distancing and which direction to walk down a hallway. Vinyl floor markers, which are great tools for health and safety, can also be used for sensory paths, athletic activities, and room organization, making them a useful activity in classrooms, hallways, and school buildings to increase student engagement and "get out the wiggles" while learning.

VariQuest® is your source for the various tools and ideas you need to improve the classroom experience for teachers and students. We offer an exceptional array of learning tools and devices including learning tools for visual learners you can combine with your curriculum to transform the way your students are taught and how they learn.

Developing a Growth Mindset isn't easy - but that's what makes it important. There are talents you're born with, talents you develop, and talents that aren't yours...yet. Research shows that your mindset is what drives your abilities to achieve goals and accomplishments, so when we suggest that a student's strengths lie 'elsewhere' - we're actually doing them a disservice to divert their dedication in another direction. To develop a growth mindset, we must first understand ourselves, and what strengths we have that help us achieve success in all endeavors. To help students realize these things, we can point them in the direction of looking at goals they've already achieved, milestones they've reached, tools and resources available to them, and asking for input from those around them. Enter this fabulous printable take-home activity created with ideas from Dr. Melissa Hughes, expert on whole brain teaching and learning: My Growth Mindset Year Journal.

Earlier this year, we launched a contest on our hashtag-loving social channels, challenging our valued VariQuest customers to post pictures of their fantastic creations, made with the help of the VariQuest Suite. What we found was the affirmation that your creativity knows no bounds, and the ideas you come up with are making your school a better place. The contest, which ended in September, produced three wonderful winners, and we'd like to show you what they've been up to!

Gratitude: to show appreciation for. It's easier to focus on the bad, but to develop a strong growth mindset, we must help our students focus on the good. Going beyond saying thank you to others, gratitude is being thankful for all that we are blessed with, and is shown through acts of kindness, cooperation, and embrace. In this bonus installment of our social-emotional learning unit series, we spark discussion among students about what it means to develop a grateful heart.