NUMBER PRACTICE  As the year comes to a close, ask parents of your kindergartners to save their old--or new--calendars, suggests Bronx, N.Y., teacher Lorraine Gics. She distributes pages from the calendars to students so that they can practice writing their numbers from 1 to 30 or 31. "The spaces on the calendars are just the right size" for copying the numbers, she notes.
 

VIDEO BACKUP  Barry Gimpel of Apple Valley, Minn., has videotaped a lecture covering each section of his Algebra II textbook. Each day that he teaches his class a new section, his school district's cable channel broadcasts the videotaped lecture of that section. Absent students can keep up with the class at home by watching the lectures on cable; if they go on vacation, they can borrow copies of his videos before the trip.
 

 WALL CHECK Each week, fifth-grade teacher Jessica Mountz of Panama City, Fla., assigns a homework checker who writes the assignments for the week across the top of a laminated wall chart that includes each student's name down the side. While students listen to morning announcements, the checker walks around to see who has completed all homework, freeing the teacher to do other things. The checker then puts an X on the wall chart next to the names of students who have not completed homework; this partnership allows Mountz to see at a glance who is behind and what is owed.

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