MIRRORING BEHAVIOR Teaching young students how to produce and discriminate between individual sounds can be challenging, says Pat D’Alfonso, a speech and language pathologist from West Warwick, R.I. Her advice? Give each child a small mirror (ask colleagues to bring in old compacts, lipstick holders, or eyeshadow cases and snap off the mirrored portion). The teacher can isolate a sound, model correct pronunciation, and then have students make the same sound and check their mouth position in the mirror.

YOUR NUMBER’S UP Media specialist Lisa Haubert of Madison Heights, Mich., has come up with a fun way to include a mini-math lesson at the end of library class. Each library table is num-bered. Students at the table number that is the “solution” to a simple math problem get to go to the door first. Examples: “The answer to 3 + 5 may line up”; or, “the answer to 24 divided by 6 may line up first.” Gear the difficulty of the math problem to the grade level of the students.

SILENCE IS GOLDEN If you think students should walk quietly through school hallways, follow this tip from Pat DeVitto of East Moriches, N.Y.: Ask students to predict the number of steps it will take to reach any given destination. Once the class begins to move, the students are too busy “counting in their heads” to even think about talking out loud. This activity can be modified to fit any other occasions where no noise is good noise.