CHART LINES  Middle school teacher Bob Parow of Sauquoit, N.Y., has found a way to make blackboard chalk lines for charts and graphs more "permanent." With a wet sponge, he dampens the entire chalkboard, then quickly draws the lines of his chart. Once the board is completely dry, he fills in the chart. When he erases the board between class periods, the numbers disappear but the lines of the chart remain.
 

QUICK BOARDS  If you can't afford individual white boards for students or don't have the room to store slates made of shower board, try disposable white plastic plates, suggests Thomasine Kennedy of Beverly Hills, Fla. Whiteboard markers work just as well on them, and the plates are lighter to distribute and easier to store. Her students use them for answering questions during class discussion or while playing a review game.
 

OUT OF SIGHT The pencil sharpener is less distracting when it's covered, suggests Denise Tyo of Massena, N.Y. She covers her sharpener with a basket, and this greatly cuts down on the number of needless trips to the sharpener. When a student does ask, she says, she simply directs the student to find it under the basket. "Out of sight, out of mind,"she notes.

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