Education Resources Blog

Election day is around the corner - and as it is the civic duty of all citizens of the United States when they turn 18 to exercise their right to vote, we've put together a simple set of lesson plan activities to help students learn about the process! Combining social studies/civics and English language arts (with printables in Spanish too!), this interactive activity booklet gives you simple instructions, tips, prompts, and resources to guide your students in running their own classroom election. In this lesson plan, designed for students in grades 2-6 but fully customizable for the needs of your classroom, students will work through hands-on activities and exercises for discussions in learning about the process of nominating the candidates, choosing the issues, promoting the platforms, voting, and more. Created in partnership with Cathy Henry, educator and founder of The Curriculum Corner and Free Word Work, students will explore discussion questions, vocabulary words, and more to better-understand our democratic process.

Trees are good for the air we breathe, the water we drink, and among many other environmentally-beneficial qualities, they are important to many cultures in bringing people together. On the last Friday in April each year, the United States celebrates Arbor Day - with the planting, nurturing, and honoring of trees! First celebrated in Nebraska in 1872 where 1 million trees were planted, the holiday spread across the country to schools, across the globe to other countries, and became a Federally recognized holiday in 1970. In this lesson plan, designed for students in grades 4-6 but fully customizable for the needs of your classroom, students will work through creative activities and writing exercises learning about the history and cultural significance of Arbor Day and trees. Created in partnership with Cathy Henry, educator and founder of The Curriculum Corner and Free Word Work, students will explore reading passages, research trees, and create presentations around their understanding of the Arbor Day holiday.

At a time when our world and nation are struggling with division and conflicting ideology - empathy and compassion are important concepts to teach our future generations, so they can make the world a better place than how we leave it. Emotional intelligence, or understanding your own emotions and the emotions of those around you, is an important skill to develop and refine. The middle school years, where students are rapidly developing their sense of self, are obviously an important time to provide tools and exercises to work on this skill. In these social-emotional learning activities, designed for students in grades 5-7 and customizable for the needs of your classroom, students will view photo examples and answer discussion questions to recognize emotions in others. Created in partnership with Cathy Henry, educator and founder of The Curriculum Corner and Free Word Work, these activities will explore empathy, emotional regulation strategies, problem-assessment, and more.

According to Neil Fleming's popular "VARK" model of learning types/styles, there are 4 main learning styles - including visual, auditory, reading/writing, and kinesthetic. Other models list additional types including social, logical, solitary, musical, and combinations of any of these. Visual learners comprehend concepts best when there are visual aids to complement learning. Examples of this could include graphs, symbols, depictions, or otherwise. It's why we decorate our classrooms with vibrant anchor charts, conceptual reminders, and graphic examples! And because neurodivergent students typically learn better with visuals rather than relying on verbal, special education classrooms can benefit greatly from supplemental learning materials that complement teaching a wide range of concepts.

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 2024 Chinese New Year will occur on Saturday, February 10th, and is the Year of the Dragon. 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 updated our collection of fun, hands-on and Common Core-aligned lessons and activities, classroom decorations, and craft projects for this year's holiday so you can explore and enjoy with your class, and we want to share them with you!

We ask Google, we ask Alexa, we ask Siri...but what questions and answers do we need to find, ourselves? The skill of writing a research paper doesn't just develop writing skills or focus on learning more about the subject at hand. It also teaches students to gather proper information to make informed decisions when faced with options in their lives. To catapult these critical thinking skills into play, we at VariQuest have put together a substantive lesson plan unit, split into two parts (to make it easier to digest and teach!) and this second and final portion focuses on the writing (and editing) portion of the process. Get Part 1: The Research Process here! From writing introductions and conclusions to proofreading to publishing, these lessons are designed in a writers'-workshop-style to guide students through all the important steps in writing a research paper. Using the example of The Great Barrier Reef, all lessons come paired with a handful of helpful printables - including anchor charts, discussion cards, reference pieces, and more!

Research-writing has changed a lot over the years, and with the prominence of artificial intelligence, those changes are only going to continue. As students learn the important skill of responsibly researching for their writing, we at VariQuest have put together a 42-page booklet, split into two parts (to make it easier to digest and teach!) and this first part focuses on the research portion of the process. From choosing a topic, to learning to paraphrase, to writing a thesis, these lessons are designed in a writers'-workshop-style to immerse students in every important step of writing a research paper. Using the example of The Great Barrier Reef, each lesson is paired with a handful of helpful printables - including anchor charts, discussion-prompts, and more!

There are so many questions when it comes to Artificial Intelligence (AI) and how it will affect humankind in the future. At its best, it can help us learn and understand even more about the world around us - making tasks easier, helping us remember important appointments, and simplifying the search for information. At its worst, it could take away our jobs, our creativity, and our critical thinking skills to rely (too much) on technology. Of course, one area we're all very concerned about is - how will this impact the lives of young people, who are growing up in an AI-focused world? Because it's unrealistic to ignore AI technology and the fact that students will be navigating this option with or without adult supervision, helping your students in the classroom make responsible decisions about how to use AI is a great first step.

Sensory paths are not only fun for elementary education because they help get the wiggles out, but they help with learning too! At VariQuest®, we feel passionately about visual and kinesthetic learning - and a sensory path is a great way to get "a-movin' and a-groovin'" while learning something too! In partnership with Cathy Henry of The Curriculum Corner, we've put together not only printables to build your own sensory path(s) on your school floors, but paired them with lesson plan activities to teach common curriculum-based concepts. Check out and download these great booklets, featured below!

You can't escape reading about Artificial Intelligence (AI) advancements and how they are changing the world every day. From self-driving cars to robotics to digital assistants and language processing tools, technology is quickly infiltrating every aspect of our lives that our minds used to control themselves. How long can you go without utilizing the technology to ease tasks in your day? "Hey Google, ______" And this means that our children and students are using the technology, too - and are probably better at it! Growing up with the instant gratification of using a search engine to find an answer and asking Alexa to play any song in the world, it's no wonder they're using the tools in their immediate toolbox to "learn" and get things in the quickest and easiest ways. BUT...what does that mean in terms of cultivating critical thinking in the classroom?