Pencil Problems
Y’all. I swear I’ve lost sleep at night trying to come up with a good “pencil policy”. I’ve tried SO many different ideas, some have worked decent enough… others have failed {miserably}.
As teachers, we have a LOT of responsibilities at school, and pencils just seemed like something that I shouldn’t have to deal with. I wanted to come up with a “system” to make MY LIFE easier, but also something that would help hold my students accountable and teach responsibility.
ALSO… for me to NOT have to buy pencils every time I made a Target trip. Am I right?!
So, here’s what worked for me…
Basically, students put all of the pencils THEY BROUGHT, in a ziploc baggie. The bags were labeled with their name and number. If they got to school in the morning and had misplaced their pencils from the previous day, they could go get 1 or 2 more from their bag.
SUPER FANCY, right??
Here’s why I liked this system and how I made it work in my classroom…
Students had to be RESPONSIBLE for their own pencils. If their parents only sent in 10 pencils, they needed to make those 10 pencils last as long as possible. (Of course, if a student was UNABLE to provide pencils, I would sneak a few in their bag from time to time!)
Students had to ask to go get their pencils. They sat right behind my desk. I like to think that this helped students from taking out of other student’s bags. It also helped me to know who was getting a new pencil EVERY. SINGLE. DAY. Another idea I’ve toyed with is hanging a shoe organizer on the bag of a door, that way each student can place their pencils in a pocket.
I had extra reminder notes printed out and ready to staple into planners for whenever students were running low on pencils.
After the morning announcements, the pencil sharpener was CLOSED! WOOHOO!! Students knew that they were expected to have 2-3 pencils to last them through each day. They were not allowed to go back and sharpen pencils during the day. I did have a few they could borrow though, in case of a pencil emergency.)
And the best part of all… I didn’t have to SHARPEN or PURCHASE a SINGLE pencil for my students ALL. YEAR. LONG. **Insert praise hands here**
My goal for last year was to work smarter, not harder. And as silly as it is, this pencil plan really helped me out!
