Business cards are not solely the property of businessmen and women anymore. People are finding creative ways to use these small slips of cardstock for everything from appointment cards to ingredient lists to personal notes.

Teachers seem like the perfect group to use business cards in fun, new ways, as they are constantly making notes, communicating with kids and parents, and trying to stay organized in the chaos of a school system. Check out our post on different ways that parents can use business cards, and read on to find 13 creative ways that teachers can use business cards.
  1. Contact Information
Use the business card the way it was meant to. Put your name and contact info on the card and send several home with each student, so their parents know how to get in touch with you.
  1. Flash Cards
Tired of spending hours making flash cards? Use professionally printed business cards instead. Print double-sided and let the learning begin.
  1. Reward Cards
There are several different ways to go with these, depending on the age of the students. If you teach younger kids, you could give them reward tickets (possibly gold-colored) for good behavior or helping a friend, which they could then cash in once they got to a certain amount. Older kids could pick tickets from a basket and each would have a reward written on it, such as “15 extra minutes of computer time,” to be cashed in at a preapproved time. For middle- and high-schoolers, you could use them as get-out-of-homework-free cards.
  1. Tickets
If your students are having trouble falling into routines, or remembering all their belongings, make business cards into little tickets. Any time you take a trip to the gym or recess, make sure they give you their ticket before they’re allowed to participate.
  1. Ballot Slips
Holding class elections or mock votes? Use these cards as ballots by giving students a checklist of candidates. Have them drop the slips into a ballot box and count them to find the winner.
  1. Suggestion Box
This idea suits teachers with older students, probably in the late middle- to high-school range. Make sure they know their voice is heard by giving them the chance to make (appropriate) suggestions for their class’s direction.
  1. Conference Reminder
Make your students aware of the importance of keeping appointments. Send them home with a reminder for parent-teacher conferences in the form of a business card. Use a backup method of email or telephone call, of course.
  1. Substitute Listing
Substitute teachers should make up business cards and drop them off at the schools around their area. This will set you apart from other subs.
  1. Name Tags
It’s amazing how many things in a classroom need name tags – seats, lockers, cubbies, books, and so on. Business cards are the perfect size for these little tags, and you can use them as a seat-arranging tool as well by pulling them randomly from a hat.
  1. Question of the Day Answer
If your classroom uses a “Question of the Day” chart as part of its routine, business cards are the perfect answer. Each child gets a card with their name on it, and places their card in the column of their answer. This way, you end up with a bar graph showing the class’s answers.
  1. Book Labels
Organizing a classroom is difficult. Keeping it organized is nearly impossible. Try to have your students help by labeling book bins with a certain genre, and label the books that go into each bin. Then, make sure your students return the books to the correct bins.
  1. Take-Home Notes
Use business cards as pre-made notes that students can bring home to their parents. They can say things like “_____ is a great friend” or “It was a great day for _____.” Write a short note on the back that kids can show to their parents.
  1. Suggested Help
If a student is struggling in a particular area, use business cards as a means to suggest helpful home-based activities. These could be lists of helpful websites or books, given out at parent-teacher conferences based on which subjects the student needs help with.

If you are a teacher, would you consider using business cards in your classroom?