Sound familiar???? I think I've probably gone through about 4 boxes of pencils this year! I think I've finally come up with a solution for keeping track of them while teaching responsibility at the same time! I took a simple cardboard box and taped it shut. Then I poked holes (evenly spaced) in one side of the box with a sharp tool I found in my classroom. I have 20 students, so I made 20 holes. A screwdriver would probably work well. Then I used one of our NEW pencils to create the size holes I needed in my box. I wrapped it up with cute wrapping paper and re-poked the holes through the paper. Voila!!!! A cute, simple storage solution for our pencils.
Management of my new pencil system is simple. Students pick up their pencil in the morning (each student has their own student number which corresponds to the numbers I put on the pencils). They are responsible for keeping their pencil in a safe place all day. We had a conversation about where a good place to keep them would be. At the end of the day, students must put their pencil back in the correct hole in the pencil holder (great problem solving since I did not put numbers on the actual pencil holder) as a ticket to leave! So far so good! I may have told them they have to sleep at school if they lose their pencil.
