Pencil Management

Have you ever felt completely frustrated by pencils? Whether it's students not having a sharp pencil or even having a pencil altogether, this process can take away from your valuable instructional time! It's crazy how something so small can cause such a BIG problem! Not to mention, it can be a chore to organize your pencils. When I first started teaching I put my extra pencils for students to use in cups. I had one cup for sharp pencils and one for dull pencils. Sadly this system did not work. The cups were CONSTANTLY getting tipped over and my pencils were never put back in the correct cups (AHHHH!) Well friends, I've found a solution that works for my classroom! I'm going to share some tips with you that has helped to save some of my sanity....

I now store my pencils in drawers! Each drawer is labeled with either sharp, dull, or erasers with an accompanying picture. You may choose for students to start out with 1-3 pencils at the beginning of the day. When they are in need of a pencil, they can go to the drawers and take one from the "sharp" drawer. If their pencil is broken or needs to be sharpened, they will put it in the "dull" drawer. They are also responsible for grabbing an eraser if needed. When we are running low on sharp pencils I typically sharpen them. You can also choose to make this a student's job. The large and bold print with the visual has been extremely helpful for students to know where to put their pencil! They almost always get put in the correct place!

Pencil Drawers

Get the drawer labels from my TPT shop by clicking here! Best of all, you can edit the text if needed! :) *The label shown above are 1.75 inches tall by 6.08 inches wide. Click the link or image below to grab similar drawers that will fit the labels. STERILITE 3 Drawer Mini  

Click the image to grab drawers similar to mine!

Right now I keep these drawers in my writing center because I don't have a very large space. I would suggest keeping yours drawers wherever works best for you! If you are interested in how I organize my writing center check out my previous post here!

So now that you've got your pencil management figured out you can take a minute to kick back and relax. Pencil shoes not required....

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