How often have you asked your students to take out a pencil, and they can’t find one, don’t have one or lost theirs? This was always a struggle, especially for my students who had some difficulties with organization. And by the end of the year, I often found myself thinking that my students must be eating their pencils… There were none left (or barely any to send home).

I spent a ton of time researching different tips and tricks on how to get your students to keep their pencils (and not waste them). Here are some of my favourite finds.
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The Great Pencil Challenge
One of my favourites was “The Great Pencil Challenge”. The basic concept is that it is a contest to see who can keep the same pencil for a given period of time. Here are a few fun Pinterest links that you may enjoy!

As awesome as this sounded, I must admit, however, that the winner in my books was Communal Supplies! Here’s how I made it work for me.
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Team Bins on Tables
My first year, I did not yet have a flexible seating classroom, so I had team bins that were placed on the center of their desks. Inside the team bins were enough pencils, erasers, glue and scissors for each member of the team (ie: 4 team members = 4 of each item).

I found that having team bins was easy for the students to keep track of their supplies and still promoted a sense of team work and collaboration. I also wanted to help students develop the skill of sharing and working together.

To keep track of the pencils, and motivate my students, I would do random spot checks. It was the team’s responsibility to ensure that they always had the correct amount of supplies. If teams were missing supplies, the class would help them look for what they were missing. I would award team points or class points (I would decide randomly between the two, and sometimes even reward both) for completed team bins.

If we did need new supplies, a specific student who had the assigned job would get the missing item for a given team (only when I asked). There were times when I would not hand out missing supplies, and then teams would need to share and work together to find a solution until I would refill their supplies.

I never had issues with kids stealing pencils or refusing to help other teams, but this was something we worked on at the beginning of the year. Practice, practice, PRACTICE. It’s so important!

Team Bins on Team Shelves
This year, I am doing communal supplies and team bins. It’s a bit trickier because the students are constantly moving around the room and there are quite a few places that pencils like to hide (in the sofas, under the sofas, on the floor, etc.). To account for this, when I do the spot checks, we also go on a search for missing supplies (check in and under sofas, on the floors, etc.). The kids love this activity and we usually end up with all the supplies accounted for.

Again, with flexible seating, I still keep the same rules and concepts with the pencils as when I had a more traditional classroom setup with desks, but I add the component of hunting for the pencils. It is still VERY important to teach and PRACTICE your expectations at the beginning of the year.

I hope you found this helpful! Let me know if you have any cool tips or tricks for keeping track of those pencils.

For more helpful tips on Communal Supplies, check out my Blog Post HERE! And be sure to check out my Classroom Organization and Posters Pinterest Board.