E-Z and Educational

As an inexpensive gift to my students, I had the local hardware store cut a 4'X 8' shower-board into square foot pieces. One board yielded 32 smaller boards. I then covered the edges with brightly colored electrical tape, bought erasable markers for each student and cut cheap flannel fabric into 8" squares for erasers. I wrote their names in permanent marker on the back and gave them silly stickers for the front edges.

We saved lots of paper, had wonderful math contest, wrote "sloppy copy" on our boards and used them to fill "empty" time. On the last day of school, they took home their boards. It was a very inexpensive gift that they will use for a long time. I have already heard from a couple of mothers who plan to keep them in the car to keep their children busy.
Submitted by: Jeanie Rex

Note Cards

Make a stack of notecards and envelopes for the recipient. When finished creating the cards, simply stack them and tie them with a bow.

• Have each student draw a picture of themselves with a black, blue or red marker on an 8.5" x 11" piece of white paper. Make a copies of the drawing but reduce them by 50%. You can then fold the copied papers in quarters and make a notecards.
  
• Potato Print Cards are fun to make. Cut a potato in half; store the half you are not using in a plastic bag and refrigerate. With a paring knife, cut a design—about 1/4" deep, in relief, in the potato. Clean the potato and dry. Students can then dip the potato "stamp" in a shallow pan filled with acrylic, poster, or other water-based paint and stamp them on blank white or colored notebooks. (Note: Potato stamps will keep for a few days if they are put in a plastic, sealed bag in the refrigerator.)