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.

For many years, comprehension strategies centered on students making connections to their texts. These may have included: Text-to-Self, Text-to-Text, and Text-to-World. However, this continued strategy seemed to only produce readers who wanted to talk about themselves. Very few times were they connecting with other texts or with world situations. Hence, a deeper understanding of the text became elusive. Having the experience of desperately pulling deeper understanding of a text from my students, I was introduced to the strategy of "close reading." Doug Fisher and Nancy Frey wrote a fantastic article in The Reading Teacher titled Close Reading in Elementary Schools, where they outline how to incorporate this "text dependent question" approach into your literacy time. The basics are:

"Class, what is the Order of Operations?" My energetic class of fifth graders shouted out loud, "Please Excuse My Dear Aunt Sally!" What? Who is Aunt Sally? When students initially learn how to add, subtract, multiply, and divide, they are taught to perform those skills using two numbers and one operation. As they progress to the next levels, they begin to see numerical expressions with more than one operation and word problems that involve multiple steps. Introduce your students to the Order of Operations - and help them memorize the "PEMDAS" or "Please Excuse My Dear Aunt Sally" acronym as early as third grade. Putting this memory into practice can be more of a challenge - so we've come up with some tips and a fun lesson plan activity for your students to drive the concept home!

20, 15, even 10 years ago - when you thought about Career and Technical Education (CTE), you would picture a wood shop or auto mechanics class at a high school. But things have changed, and CTE isn't your dad's trade training anymore. Career & Technical Education Programs built for the 21st Century look drastically different - with schools building skill-development for many real-world jobs such as engineering, graphic design, teaching, business management, and so much more. The goal is achieving what schools have always worked towards - preparing students for college or careers - but this broader spectrum is geared towards a new kind of learner.

Despite being 18 years into the new millennium, we hear a lot about "21st Century Learning Environments" these days, as schools are struggling to adapt to meet the needs of a new kind of learner - one who is constantly immersed in technology, and thus needs engaging, hands-on activities to feel connected to the real-life, real-world. With this in mind, we've created a 6-step checklist to help you assess building new, or enhancing your current CTE program, based on tactics our customers have implemented, as proof these techniques really work. For example...

Engage students in learning the parts of a plant cell with a variety of teaching tools and fun activities using your VariQuest Cutout Maker 1800 and VariQuest Perfecta Poster Design System!

"The trouble with Women’s History Month—with all these special months—is that they encourage people to think that problems have been solved. The female heroes of yesterday are acknowledged, the debt paid and the slate wiped clean." -Maureen Costello, "The Trouble with Women's History Month" Use this quote and the resources below to discuss the past, present, and future of women's history in the context of Women's History Month.

March is Women's History Month! While the month is half over, there is still plenty of time to engage students of all ages in the history, struggles, and triumphs of women. Below is a brief, customizable lesson using images from Smithville Elementary Library's public blog. Images of notable women in history paired with one actionable word provide groundwork for biographical research and discussion leading into the contemporary.

While poster sessions may seem reserved for post-secondary and professional conferences, high school students can benefit from the opportunity to present their research and projects in such a succinct way. These events allow students to "get their feet in the water" and work on communication skills by presenting their research in a condensed "elevator speech" format rather than a full-scale presentation.