has been my pet peeve too

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Home : 2003 : October : 19

has been my pet peeve too
By Tanya

This is my fifth year teaching and the problem has gone away. Things I've done differently:

This year has been the best yet because my supply list called for one package of pencils to have rather than 2 pencils. Any that
are found on the floor (and that's several) get picked up and placed in the sharpened pencil box.
The sharpened pencil box has only "used" pencils. These come from the floor or my own catchall draw at home. In the past I had pretty new pencils around all the time and I think that was a big contributor to the problem. I'd go buy 5-10 beautiful new pencils every week and they'd be

gone. I haven't done that once this year.

My pencil sharpener has been broken for two years. This is a good thing because I tell the kids during the first week they need a small sharpener they can keep at their desk. If they make a spill of shavings I have a dustpan they can go get and pick up the spill.

When kids are without a pencil they just go to the sharpened pencil box and get what they need.

Best wishes, I know this was my biggest pet peeve when I started teaching.