In years past I just couldn't find a solution to the pencil drama in my class.
1. Let kids sharpen pencils at all. -13 bow ties!
2. Sharpen pencils only at key times. A little better idea, but still only 2 bow ties.
3. I sharpen a glut of pencils and kids swap them out as needed. This worked, but it still resulted in a lot of pencils being used and kids destroying them. 4.5 bow ties.
4. Let students use their own personal pencil sharpeners. Back to -4 bow ties. Plus the floor was a MESS!
This year I started the year off with a caddy on each table with all the supplies the kids might need for the day. In there are 5 good sharp pencils. So far this has been a great idea. The kids don't feel like they have to horde the pencils, becuase I gave them to them. No one sharpens pencils. No mess on the floor and most all all zero down time for pencil disputes. I have one little one ask to sharpen her pencil. I asked her why when there are 3 right in front of her.
At the end of the day the Table Manager brings me all pencils and I swap them out for new ones. So far I've only had to do a mass pencil sharpening 1 time. That was mainly because I'm used to sharpening at the end of the day. I keep the dull ones in a cup for sharpening later. My table managers are reliable enough I may just let them do the swapping out at the end of the day themselves. We'll see.
A lot of credit has to go to going over the routines with the kids. They know what to do and usually they want to do right. So far, thankfully I've not lost much time with the pencil demon. Now if I could figure out how to improve the handwriting! I call it foot writing cause it looks like they write with their toes. What do you do to fix this problem?
