Teaching tips come in all shapes and sizes. Finding a teaching tip that works for you is golden! Find out how to create a pencil management system for your classroom and for lost or extra tools. I hope that one of these pencil management teaching tips will be a golden ticket that’ll make your days smoother and always have pencils at the ready for your students.
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Teaching Tip – Create a System
Please Sharpen – There are lots of great examples of ways to create a system for having pencils at the ready in your classroom. Many teachers will use buckets or bins to hold two sets of pencils. Ones already sharpened, ones that are put in to be sharpened. This helps save the sharpening line from forming and from having your sharpener make noise at inconvenient times.
Container Options
Paint Cans are a way to store in place of buckets too. Great for placing labels onto. Hot glue scrapbook paper onto a paint can and label. They come in various sizes.
Clear Pails are a beautiful way to turn your system into a display. Having a clean bin makes tools easily visible for students.
Buckets adorned with circle labels makes for a stylish system. Have one that shows pencils are “ready to write” and another for those that need a “sharpen please.” {Free download}
Styles
Glue Gun and Ribbons – Embellish your bins to add style by adorning your pencil manangement system with cute ribbons to coordinate with your classroom decor theme. Hot glue gun on sample pencils to labels your bins or add letter stickers in place of a paper label.
Color Coded – Make it simple! Green means ready to go and red implies “Stop!” because it’s broken or dull. A system that could work in any grade level, even preschool.
Have a student take on being the designated sharpener to cut down on time spent with the {oh so not} majestic sound of the pencil sharpener. Have a student place the dull pencils into the correct bucket ready for the next day. {Free download} I hope these pencil management teaching tips help you create a system that will work for your students and add productive time back into your day.
Thank you fantastic teachers for great inspirations of your pencil management systems. Your buckets are adorable! Feel free to grab the “I’m a Featured Teach Junkie” blog button as your creations are definitely worth the shout out.
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Teach Junkie
Leslie {aka the original Teach Junkie} loves learning new things to make teaching easier and more effective. She enjoys featuring creative classroom fun when she's not designing teacher shirts, making kindergarten lesson plans or planning her family's next trip to Disney World.