Thursday, February 3: Interactive Technology for Your K-12 School

Friday, February 4: Updating the Audio at Green Bay Packers’ Lambeau Field

Friday, February 4: Join our Upcoming Webinar on Video Wall Communications

Over the next three days, we have professional development and AV classes scheduled, as well as contests to win an interactive classrooom and a Varitronics laminator.

And be sure to check out this testimonial on the advantages of working with AVI-SPL to integrate AV technology in a number of K-12 classrooms.

Why not also create magnets to sell from your school store? Use your mascot or write out “class of” years to promote school spirit. Magnets are great to stick in their school lockers too. You could even do a fundraiser letting the student select what words to cut. Charge per letter or inch to make a profit.

Note to Cutout Maker Customers who are downloading the software: If you are a shapes credit user, you’ll want to activate all of your shapes prior to upgrading to 2.0. The credits are not compatible with the new software, so any credits you’ve not used, you’ll lose. You will not lose the shapes you’ve unlocked – those are yours forever.

Want more Product News, Tips and Tools? Sign-up for our Bright Ideas eNewsletter

This newsletter will help you educate and communicate with your students using Varitronics products. Every quarter you will receive ideas and tips on how to use Varitronics tools in your school, as well as new product announcements and promotions. Click here to subscribe. »

The Cutout Maker content has had a makeover. The fonts, collections and credit CDs have been discontinued and will no longer be available after January 20th. The new content options are Premium Access CDs and Learning Modules. Here’s what you get with the new products:

You asked for it, and they listened! The VariQuest Premium Access CDs provide you with access to 14 fonts, 173 collections and 3800 shapes. These are available to be renewed yearly or you can now purchase an Unlimited CD – never have to buy content for your Cutout Maker again! With all this content now available to you, you can make your bulletin boards and learning manipulatives more dynamic. You now have multiple fonts to play with, and collections that will enhance learning. If you already have a Total Access CD installed, and you upgrade to the 2.0 software, you’ll “unlock” the Premium Access content automatically! Special pricing is available through July 2011 on the Premium Access CDs, if you’re ready to renew or start investing in this content option.

Learning Modules are excellent ways to add value to the Cutout Maker library on a budget. Each module consists of an educational subject like math, reading or science with related content. You can gain up to 101 shapes and 11 collections depending on the learning module you purchase. Each learning module comes with an activity guide providing you with 10 lessons you can incorporate into your educational units. In addition to the learning activities, you also receive access to an online database providing you with the individual state standards and Common Core State Standards that these lessons are aligned to. Talk about an easy way to provide proof that your lesson plans are on target!

All of these products are now available on our online store to make your purchase easier.

Visit variquest.avispl.com.

Want more Product News, Tips and Tools? Sign-up for our Bright Ideas eNewsletter

This newsletter will help you educate and communicate with your students using Varitronics products. Every quarter you will receive ideas and tips on how to use Varitronics tools in your school, as well as new product announcements and promotions. Click here to subscribe. »

With the scalable lettering and multiple fonts available, you can create some excellent titles for your boards! The shape library also includes great cutouts to highlight a ton of educational subjects from science related themes like cell parts to physical education. Use the search by keyword option to see if your current lesson plan has anything available to use!

Student work can be framed with exciting borders or stapled to the bulletin board with fun designs protecting the corners of the pages. Decorate and get creative! The more eye catching your bulletin board is, the more likely a student will be to take time to stop and learn something new as they mingle in the hallways.

Sometimes information is easier to display using a Poster. That’s where your handy Poster Maker can spring into action!

As your parent teacher conferences and open house nights are rapidly approaching, utilize the Poster Maker to create some really helpful directional posters. Use the “search by keyword” feature to find the arrow posters. These can be customized to help your guests find their way around the school. For large high school campuses, why not scan and print some maps and post them around the school to help the guests find their way around the school? These maps are great for the incoming freshmen too!

With new students, you might need to find a way to help teach them your school’s rules and policies. Use the Poster Maker to help post important information. There are even some great high impact colors like the fluorescent orange on black that can help grab attention. The orange on black posters are perfect for posting safety information!

Want to share your creative ideas using the VariQuest products? Let us know by emailing victoria.cobb@avispl.com »

Order your Cutout Maker and Poster Maker accessories and supplies online! Visit variquest.avispl.com »

To better serve our customers, we’ve opened our new online store! This new site offers a one-stop shop to quickly and easily order VariQuest supplies with a credit card or purchase order. The helpful tracking system keeps you in the loop so you can monitor when your orders will arrive. In addition to refreshing your supplies in a snap, you’ll be on top of what the latest specials are, find bright ideas on how to use your visual learning tools and help you to become a VariQuest expert with the helpful tips and troubleshooting pages.

For our product specials and offers, click here. »

AVI-SPL is authorized to sell Varitronics products and supplies in Florida, Georgia, Alabama, Maryland, Washington, DC and Fairfax County, Virginia. Currently online sales are for k-12 or higher. If you are a non-educational customer, please call (866) 559-9192 for price and to purchase.

Or contact us at (866) 559-9192.

Enhance Learning

Use the alphabet cards to help students practice the alphabet. The images below the letter help them practice the sounds and the cutout letters are great ways for them to practice writing the letters. They can trace the letter. You can also use the letter cards to spell out the student’s names. Ask them to see how many other words they can create with the letters in their name.

The circle fraction pieces in the math category can help illustrate the use of fractions. Suggest a pizza reference. For example, ask the students if “Big Billy ate half of the pizza for dinner and half of what was left over for lunch, how much pizza was left”. Using the fraction pieces, they can have a manipulative to help them figure out the solution.

Use the cutout puppets, animal and people shapes to help students with storytelling abilities. They can use these to help them tell a story to their classmates. The students can practice using pitch and volume to help animate the story.

Decorate the Halls and Walls

Use the border shapes to help create fun borders for your classroom and hallway bulletin boards. With all the fun shapes, you can have a different border for every class unit, season and holiday! Laminate the cutout borders so you can reuse them year after year.

Have the students write essays in the shaped books so you have a great end product to post in the hallways so parents and staff can see the great work and learning going on in your classrooms.

Create a character education bulletin board and use the great cutout banners etched with character education words. Post the banner and then use cutout stars or circles to write different ideas on how to exemplify that characteristic.

Recognize Achievements

Acknowledge your volunteer’s outstanding efforts with a card. There are some great cards in the Cutout Maker library you can use to write your kind words on. Some even give you a place to add a name to cutout.

On your Character Education bulletin board, cut frames to put around pictures of students who epitomize the character education word of the month.

Write on the trophy cutouts the names of the students of the month and proudly display these in the hallway.

Create coupons using the dollar cutout to give to students as they achieve milestones. Allow them to turn these coupons in for treats.

Need Training on Total Access Shapes CD’s?

You or any of your staff can join our trainer for live online training seminars. Each session is one hour long and focuses on a single VariQuest™ learning tool.

Email Victoria Cobb at victoria.cobb@avispl.com to find out the schedule.

The VariQuest Suite of products is perfect for developing a student based enterprise. This gives students real world work experience and responsibility for running the business. It can even help them fulfill academic, work based learning standards with exposure to marketing, operations, production, finance and sales disciplines. The Poster Maker, Awards Maker and Cutout Maker’s output can easily be sold no only to teachers but to other students and members of the community. Here are some ideas!

Back to School Night: Sell posters, banners and cutouts to teachers and administrators to decorate the hallways and classrooms with curriculum based materials.

Science Fair: Students can order cutouts to help decorate their science fair boards. Teachers can order plaques for the winners of the fair.

Sporting Events: Create posters and banners for pep rally events and advertise the upcoming games. Students can also sell posters depicting a picture of the sporting team with the team’s schedule. Local businesses can purchase stickers to post on water bottles with coupons to their businesses. Cutouts can be sold as ways to get the crowd excited!

School Dances: Sell posters of student photos taken at the dance. Sell cutouts to decorate the dances with. Student committees can purchase posters to advertise the events with.

Community Events: Members of the community can order posters to promote events, nametag stickers, and bumper stickers for events

Class Spirit and Club Events: Grade levels can purchase car decals and bumper stickers with their graduation year. Clubs can sell bumper stickers to members or as fundraisers.

Do you have a fundraiser idea using Varitronics products? Let us know and we can feature your idea on our blog or quarterly newsletter! Email Victoria Cobb at victoria.cobb@avispl.com with your ideas.

Click here for more fundraiser ideas

Fundraising

Create stickers to sell during Valentine’s Day rather than sell carnations. There are several great templates in the Design Center software you could use to sell these unique valentines.

Sell stickers to support different clubs in your school. Whether it is the chess club, drama club or even a sport, you can create small stickers that students can stick to mugs or notebooks. You could also use the bumper sticker templates for a bigger sticker with a larger profit.

For spirit week, sell graduation year stickers and use this as a way to see who has the most spirit – the more stickers sold equals a winner! High Schools students will enjoy the creations you make on the clear sticker because they can stick these onto the windshields of their cars.

If sporting events cause trouble with parking, why not make a few bucks off of it? Sell VIP parking passes that you can create using the Awards Maker. Let these folks park in the spots closest to the stadium.

Get your Marketing classes involved on the fundraising and ask them to contact local businesses. Sell water bottles, notebooks, or pencils with special labels during sporting events or during lunch periods. The sticker may even include a coupon, so student can take the water bottle or sticker to the business for a special discount.

Create Incentives

Highlight student achievements in the Accelerated Reader program by giving them a bookmark for each new level they reach in the program. Simply print one of the ribbon stickers and stick to manila card stock to create a sturdy, useful award to keep them reading!

p>Motivate students to hand in assignments in a timely manner by creating simple, quick stickers that say something like “way to go”. These stickers can be personalized with their name to make them special.

When a student consistently makes improvements in their grades, why wait to give them an award at the awards ceremony? Create a plaque or bumper sticker to show them you see their efforts and are proud of what they’ve accomplished.

Use the Awards Maker to create stickers that show a student their improvements. Maybe you’re working on learning a complicated concept. Give them an award for after mastering each portion of the concept. By the end of the unit, they will have all collected a complete set of these incentives.

Highlight Specific Programs

If you are working on character education year round, pass out stickers to students who embody the concept you are teaching. For example, you notice one of your students is willing to share supplies with another classmate. Showcase that student’s positive behavior with a small sticker with her name and what she embodies.

<

Start a “Random Acts of Kindness” program at your school and reward students with a sticker when you see them exhibit kindness to classmates. This small incentive will help them to understand how their behavior has made a positive impact within the school.

If your school has a Head Start program, create bumper stickers to help the program grow. The more exposure the program has in the community, the better your chances are of enrolling additional students.

Create plaques or window stickers for teachers who are working towards or earned their National Certification. This allows parents and visitors to see how many teachers you have that are dedicated to their own growth as educators.

Educate

The bumper sticker templates can help teachers create word walls in their classrooms. All the colored sticker media has a temporary adhesive making them easy to peel off of the wall after use. Because the stickers are not made of paper, they shouldn’t apply to the percentage of wall space covered by paper rule the Fire Department enforces.

You can also create stickers the students can utilize while they are learning new concepts like math formulas or grammar rules. The more they see the rules and concepts, the more likely they are to remember them. If it’s posted on their notebook, they’ll see and use them every day!

Create puzzles by creating stickers with vocabulary words and definitions on separate stickers. Press the stickers to a card stock to make them sturdy and use them like flash cards. Have the students match the words to their definitions for a group project that is fun and educational.

As you can see, there are several great applications that you can utilize your Awards Maker for in addition to the twice yearly Awards ceremony. With the quick print times, you can get in and out of the workroom with great incentives that will wow your students with little effort on your part!

To view Varitronics® full-line of visual learning products, click here.

Encourage teachers to post banners and posters in the hallway, cafeteria, office and other non-classroom areas. While walking with elementary students to the library or cafeteria, stop at the posters and banners to ask them to read aloud. One of the great opportunities for reading everyday is to post the lunch menu. Select a different student each day to read the menu. The media specialist may want to have students contribute to book reviews each week. Again, this project could become an opportunity to read more – reading the reviews might inspire a student to read the whole book!

Create word walls to keep new vocabulary on the walls to help students learn their meanings. Use your Awards Maker bumper sticker templates to create sticky-backed labels to post to your word wall. Or, use the clear parking permit sticker and take advantage of the unused space on your windows. You can encourage your students to stare at the window! Keep the wandering eye engaged by sticking words and phrases from the lessons on the ceiling too – they’ll be learning something no matter where they look!

The Cutout Maker can make learning grammar enjoyable. With the Total Access Shapes CD, you have access to over 3000 shapes in the Cutout Maker library. Get started with a grammar lesson by cutting out some shaped nouns like a picture of a cat or a beach ball. Then use your fonts and the “connect letters” or “add bar” option to help create your verbs, articles, prepositional phrases, etc. Lay the cutouts on a table and ask the students to create sentences using the cutouts. Make it harder by asking them to identify the different parts of the sentences. Show how to rearrange sentences by utilizing commas. That portion of the lesson can help educate your students on comma splices and prepositional phrases. Learning how to remove prepositional phrases from sentences to check the subject and verb agreement is a skill tested on the SAT, so this is a great activity for high schoolers too.

Practicing reading everywhere gets students in the habit of understanding how important the written word is. Make reading a daily activity with your class and utilize your VariQuest products to help inspire your students to become avid readers!