I found it helpful with my students to point out the relationships with how the notes get their names from their placement either on the staff or on leger lines above and below the staff. The attached file shows those relationships. It boils down to memorizing Every Good Boy Does Fine (or your version of the saying) and the spelling of the word FACE.
For those who may have difficulty putting the names of the notes to the musical symbols, the fingerings to the symbols or vice versa, the exercise that helped my students overcome this difficulty was to "say and finger", or better still "sing and finger" the song or exercise. In other words the students would sing in pitch B A G A B B B---A A A---B B B---B A G A B B B---A A B A G---to the tune of Mary Had a Little Lamb in rhythm at the same time they fingered those notes on their instruments. When and only when they could do that perfectly on a new song, could they play the tune on their instruments. Once note names and fingerings were locked in, then we would move on to singing pitches using syllables for the correct articulations while fingering, etc.
