Pencil Thieves

I struggled with keeping pencils in my classroom last year. I kept them in a bucket on my  classroom supply shelf that my students had access to.....somehow they disappeared really quick. No one seemed to know where they went. LOL

Every once in a while I'd look through their desks after hours and take any yellow #2 pencils and leave them with 2. Some students would have 6 pencils! Some days I would find pencils broken in half laying around the room. The other thing I saw was they tore off their eraser to try and get a pencil eraser topper. When I wouldn't give them one (I could tell if it was gone from erasing or tore off) they would come back to me later saying their pencil somehow broke in half and they needed a new one.

I've done some thinking and research this summer, and I think I have a solution. It involves a straw dispenser and duct tape. My step dad went on to Amazon and found me a clear plastic straw dispenser for around $20 (My parents are wonderful contributors to my classroom)! I bought standard yellow #2 pencils, and cut thin strips of decorative duct tape. I wrapped the duct tape around the top of the pencil below the eraser. I placed them in the straw dispenser but they wouldn't turn out.

Due to the pencils ridges they wouldn't fit - they weren't smooth and round like a straw. We used a dremel to shave down the slit the pencils slip out of. Now they come out! They are a little heavy for the turner when they are all in there so you have to turn the knob until one slips into the groove then it turns right out! 

Now, how am I going to use this in my classroom? What's the purpose of the duct tape? The dispenser is going to replace the bucket of pencils that were a free for all. To get a pencil from it they have to bring me a pencil that is too short to be sharpened, but still has the duct tape on it. Hopefully, this will eliminate going through a bazillion pencils this year!