System of Equations: Substitution

I absolutely despise teaching my lower level students the substitution method.  But the state always puts a question on the state test about the elimination and substitution methods.  Does anyone else feel this frustration?  I tend to want to jump straight to the calculator for graphing and using matrices.  But in an attempt at tutoring the other day, I had a moment of genius strike!  It inspired a creation of a worksheet...to be shared at a later date.  Note cards served their purpose in class that day.

I made the student flip the card to the other side every time he crossed the equal sign.  He said it was still a lot of work.  You know because our students are professional whiners at times, but he said it did make more sense after doing several problems like this.  Will he more than likely solve systems using a different method?  Yes, but will he recall this activity with this method?  Yes.  For some more eye candy, I have posted my latest notebook additions below.  The yellow chart came from Holt McDougal's powerpoint.