Sharpening ideas.....

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Home : 2007 : November : 19

Sharpening ideas.....
By DediktdTeachr

One thing I did in the past was allow students to sharpen their pencils, at an appropriate time (when I wasn't instructing), and they would do this by raising their pencil in the air and tapping on the top of it. Then I
nod my head and let them go or hold up my hand and give them a hold on signal and point to the sharpener if there was a student there already. This meant yes, but after that student sits down. This worked great because no one was raising their hand or shouting out that they needed to sharpen their pencil. It was a simple way to manage it and it also discouraged students from doing it

every second. If it was not a good time, I would shake my head or ignore them and they new what that meant.

Currently, I have a pencil box with each row of students and a sharpener. Students sharpen and put the shavings in the pencil box. They can empty the pencil shavings after school when they need to. Sending a supply letter at the beginning of the year helped with most students having their own pencil box and sharpener. I have bought a few $.50 sharpeners that I will pass out if someone needs to sharpen, but it has worked wonders for my sanity having them do it this way! I award group points and they are not allowed to argue about sharpening or the box. It is a group thing and they get in trouble (lose points) for making any sort of fuss about sharpening. I have had no problems at all with this system.