"I don't have a pencil."

Waste. It sucks. Even with these posters I made (below) and discussions with students, it doesn't always work or get better. If any of this below has happened in your classroom, you feel my pain!

My BIGGEST pet peeve last year was hearing "What? I don't have a pencil." Repeatedly. I have done pencil management a million ways (okay... 8 different ways because that's how many years under my belt so far, including this way), but this year I came upon this blog and plan to see how it will work with some tweaks for my own classroom: Once Upon a Classroom Blog Post

I used a Priority Mail Medium Flat Rate Box, which is slightly bigger than I'd love, but I had the box and it will suffice.

Since I can have about 32 kids, I just made 36 holes (there are always more kids due to special education kids who come to certain class subjects)

 I painted and numbered each hole.

Yes, I purchased engraved pencils from Oriental Trading that say the pencil belongs to me...

Ta da! I still have to number them on one side and put students' names on the other side of the flag.

My current plan:

As part of the going home routine, students must return pencils SHARPENED and then pick them up each morning.

They will receive prizes/classroom money for every week they did this. I will play this up the first week of school by offering prizes daily/every two days such as pencil grips, personal sharpener, etc. to get it moving. Then I will most likely pay them with my currency system. I anticipate I'll need some refresher motivation techniques mid year so that will be when I incorporate prizes again like cool pens, etc.

Wish me luck!!!

Pencils in the Classroom...Problem Solved! Hopefully!

This is probably one of the nerdiest posts I can think of, but I'm so happy with how this turned out!

Ok, I've taught 7 years now and I don't have a major problem with how kids get pencils in my class, but I've never been satisfied.  Lately, it's even irked me a bit.  I have always had a dull and sharpened pencil can.  Students are supposed to exchange one for the other.  Then there's the ONE person in charge of sharpening all the dull pencils at the end of the day to refill.  Sounds like it works?  At first.

What typically happens is that kids just take and don't trade.  Then we are out of pencils and no matter how much we talk about being respectful of materials, cleaning out desks to find extra pencils, etc. it still happens.  Then when we're about to take math notes or whatever, you get that kid who can't seem to figure out what to do when he doesn't have a pencil.  Ugh!  (I'm probably overreacting, but it gets annoying.)

I got this dispenser on Amazon.com.