NOTE BUDDIES
When the flu season hits and absenteeism is up, eighth-grade math teacher Peter A.
Mechalke of Trumansburg, N.Y., has a simple way to help absentees keep up with work. He
assigns a "note buddy" for each student and provides the buddy with a sheet of
carbon paper and a second piece of paper so that a second set of notes can be
automatically produced. This also helps remind students that their own notes should be
neat and readable, adds Mechalke.
ART CARDS
Pick up a set of art postcards at your local museum and use them for creative writing
projects, says Philadelphia high school teacher Paula Cohen. She distributes the cards in
class and has students write a story about what they see in the card.
NAME BOOK
Spanish teacher Barbara Holland Kelly of Liberty, N.Y., keeps a "baby name" book
in her classroom that never fails to generate interest. She uses it to convert everyone's
name into Spanish, but she also uses it to teach the etymology of words as the students
realize that their names have meaning. It is fun to see a name "morph" as it
moves from country to country, e.g., John becomes Juan, Jean, Johann, Sean, Hans and Ivan.
It also leads to discussions about surname systems (Johnson, Ivanovich) in countries.
