DAILY SURPRISE Is your interest waning as the school year wears on? Keep the mid-year blues at bay by planning a small surprise for your class each day, suggests Jeannine Perez of Los Lunas, N.M. It can be as simple as changing a piece of furniture or as time-consuming as planning a new unit or elaborate art project. One day her “surprise” was a single kernel of popped corn set in front of each student. She asked them to nibble it, think of descriptive words and come to the board to write their words.

QUICK FIX We all accidentally use a permanent marker on whiteboards designed only for “dry erase” markers, notes Paul Blundin of Wallingford, Pa. Problem solved: Use nail polish remover to get rid of the permanent marker.

GET YOUR GLUE GUN After years of dealing with “falling posters” that had been attached to walls with masking tape, Dearborn, Mich., math teacher Paula Marsh found a better adhesive. She uses a glue gun, which works great for attaching posters to brick, wood, metal and painted surfaces. It’s a little expensive because the glue goes fast, but it works very well. “You have to work fast” to make sure the glue adheres to your items before it dries, she notes.

LATE SIGN-IN Keep a clipboard immediately inside your classroom door for late-arriving students to sign in, suggests ninth-grade teacher Mike Dale of Villa Park, Ill. Students with an excused late pass just leave their passes on the teacher’s desk, but those who have unexcused absences have to pause at the door and record their lateness, he notes, thus creating a record of their own tardiness.

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