Pencil Parking

This year, I have had a pencil dilemma.

This is my 21st year of teaching and I have never had this problem. I have always just put out pencils in the supply buckets at each table. I would put out new pencils as we needed them, but it wasn't very often. Each year, I always had a surplus of pencils left.

Luckily, I had a lot of extra pencils left from last year, because this year, the pencils in my room have been disappearing.

I teach two different blocks of students. I'm not exactly sure where the pencils are going, but over 100 of them have gone missing. 

So, I have been searching for a solution.For a couple of weeks, I had a sign out sheet for the pencils, but it was taking too much time to have the kids sign out a pencil and return it at the end of class, since I was having to monitor it.

I looked online at Really Good Stuff and I found this amazing pocket chart.

I wrapped each pencil with washi tape and numbered them. I gave each student a number. Now, at the beginning of each block, I quickly pass out the pencils. I have a student collect the pencils at the end of each block and we make sure all the pencils are returned. I have been using this system for a week and it is working very well.

If you are having a pencil problem, I highly recommend this pocket chart (or something similar).