I was informed by my supply clerk that our school will no longer be purchasing electronic pencil sharpeners. We have to go back to using those manual ones attached to the wall. I do not have a place in my room for one. I honestly remember them as being horrible & always breaking too. I have bought those tough blue industrial shapeners at the teacher store for 50 bucks & by the year is over it was dead too! What do you all do to help w/this situation? Do you use electronic? Are there any tips for having it last longer? Someone told me that pencils w/the decorative coverings ruin the sharpener as do colored pencils. Another teacher suggested that I have a can for sharpened pencils & one for dull. Only prob is the kids all bring in their own pencils, so I can see them having theirs "stolen" from the can. Anyhow, I'd appreciate any tips. I'm leaning towards buying another industrial one w/my own money because that is what I'm used to. Tina (4th grade)
Consider a Baggie for each student. In goes their personal pencil sharpener (those little ones with the shavings catcher) which they keep in desk or binder. Students never have to get out of seat. I have kids bring these as part of supplies first week of school.
Office supply stores sell, or used to sell, four-packs of very durable little metal pencil sharpeners by Staedtler Mars; you find them among the drafting supplies. They don't have shavings catchers, but they could be issued in snack-size Ziploc bags, and students could use the bags to catch the shavings.
I use electric sharpeners. My first graders love the "wall grinder" and they can take a brand new pencil and reduce it to a one inch stub in minutes! Therefore we do not use the "wall grinder". I tell parents from the first day of school that all pencils and paper that enters the classroom becomes public property. We share. I make sure every child has 6 sharp pencils at the beginning of each week and we replace them as needed. I sharpen pencils in my classroom. I have invited parents who want to help out in the classroom to come in during breakfast to sharpen pencils. So far, no interest. I don't allow small individual sharpeners. There are two reasons. I had a little girl a few years ago who had one of those sharpeners in her desk. Next thing I knew she had it in her mouth running her tongue up and down the blade. Fortunately she did not cut herself. Then, I also had a little boy in a third grade class while I was subbing, who unscrewed the blade from the plastic case and was threatening other children with it. Those little sharpeners just aren't worth the trouble they can cause.
Is this a common practice..... that materials (pencil, paper, etc) paid for by parents becomes public property?
Major--that is another thread (got kinda heated)... I share also, but I have it on my supply list. That is why I encourage parents not to buy the expensive ones or personal ones. (We share pencils, glue sticks, glue, and scissors. I don't have desks. Most preschool and kindergarten classes that I know of share these items. Some even share crayons and markers. That is why they are specific on the supply list.) Since I share pencils, (my personal given birth) children sharpen them each day after school. I have baskets on the tables that hold pencils, a large pink eraser, glue sticks, and scissors. I have a basket of sharpened pencils on my desk. The children can come and exchange during the day (as long as I am not talking (teaching.))
I prefer the electric, just because the manual ones are too loud and sometimes the students can't get their pencil sharpened quick enough.
I prefer electric. I have three in my classroom. Two are new this year, and I have one that I used in kinder. They are all doing quite well, mainly because I do not allow any of those fancy pencils with the plastic wrapper to go in them. Also, no colored pencils! I heard those jam electric pencil sharpeners. Students use the handhelds for these. They use the pencil sharpener with the top on it, so no shavings on the floor.
I prefer electric, but I have never bought one that has lasted a whole year. I bought 3 heavy duty school pro pencil sharpeners in the course of a year and none of them lasted the whole year. I sharpened all pencils to make sure the kids weren't jamming it, but they all still broke down
but nowadays the manual wall sharpeners are just as cheap. I know teachers that have 30 year old crank sharpeners that are still working fine, but the parts on my new crank sharpener are falling off.
I just got the best sharpener I've ever had from Office Depot. It's call IPOINT. It's about $30.00. So quiet..the kids haven't broken it yet...I love it!
I absolutely hate electric and the wall-mounted pencil sharpeners. I swear, the annoying sound "tickles" the middle of my brain. I have those tiny fifty cent sharpeners and love them.
When I student taught (third grade), my cooperating teacher had a policy kind of like this, but it wasn't mandatory. He had a bin for sharpened pencils that the students could take whenever they needed one and a bin for dull pencils that they could put their pencils in to be sharpened by the pencil person (one of his classroom jobs that rotated each week). He told the kids that if they didn't want to share their pencils, that was fine, but they had to write their initials on them with a Sharpie so that there would be no fights over "That's MY pencil!" It worked out pretty well, except for when the pencil person slacked and there weren't enough sharp pencils ready to go.
I use a used bucket & sharpened bucket for community pencils which I collect at the beginning of the year & store & use as needed. It works wonderfully. I just wish I had a parent who would come about 2 x's a week to do this for me. I teach 2nd grade & don't let the kids use the electric sharpener. I'm on my second year w/the one I have now. It's gets quite persnickety now & then though & I'm sure it won't last another year. We get $500.00 to spend at the beginning of the year & I buy one about every other year.
I am using an electric sharpener that my dad used for years and years. I have no idea why it keeps going. I'll look for the brand on Monday. It did get jammed with a color pencil tip, but one of my fifth graders took the thing apart, fixed the problem, and put it back together. It looks retro now. Makes me wonder why it still sharpens? I wonder if my Dad took it apart and sharpened the blade? Now I'm really curious.....
I have two electric sharpeners the students may use before 8:00 AM and when we are getting ready to go home. I also have two wall mounted sharpeners, but no one ever uses them because they are awful! I tell the kids they are welcome to bring those little manual sharpeners to keep in their desks, and most of them do just that. No one is ever allowed to put colored pencils in the electric sharpeners because the "leads" break off and I have to disassemble the stupid machines to dig them out. I've had these electric sharpeners for at least four or five years.
I use the electric sharpener too. I don't like the wall mounted manual one because the shavings get all over the place and the kids really can reduce the pencil to a stub in a minute. They just like the sound it makes. My K kids were OBSESSED with our manual one at the beginning of the year. They would not stay away from it and we were always out of pencils because they would be over there every minute sharpening. I finally put a piece of tape over it to make it off limits. If I ever remember, I'm getting a screw driver and removing the thing permanetly. I use the electric sharpener and the kids aren't allowed to touch it. I don't sharpen any colored pencils ever. I'm glad to know about the pencils with the fancy coverings too...I always suspected those were a problem. If the kids want a pencil sharpened, they know they have to ask me or another adult in the room and with my little ones I purposely put it up out of their reach. They all do fine with the rule, although I do have one little one that thinks he is the exception and ALWAYS tries to climb onto the cupboard to sharpen his pencil without asking for help. That's another vent though... he's something else. Anyway, my eletric sharpener has lasted for a long time because of this. When I used to let my third graders use it, they broke the one I bought in a week. That's when I decided that no more students would use the sharpener.
This is a major problem in my room. I have two wall-mounted sharpeners. One has never worked. The other one only sort of works. Several times a day I have kids complaining that they can't get their pencil to sharpen since it doesn't work right. I guess this weekend I will go buy a mechanical sharpener. I'm not happy about it. It's not the noise; it's that I have to buy it. We have SMARTboards in every room, but we can't get working pencil sharpeners?? What the heck? I'm going broke buying science supplies for these kids. I guess the pencil sharpener is kind of like the last straw for me.
I have never had luck with Boston/X-acto, I've had a ton of them. Although the Boston elec. sharpeners that I inherited when I switched schools seem to be holding up well. They are at least on their 2nd year. I heard Panasonic was good, but I can never find any of them. Does anyone have opinions on Bostitch brand or iPoint?
I just got a Royal brand pencil sharpener. I works great so far but I have only had it for a month. I have has to make it off limits to my second graders because they almost broke it - twice. They seem to have a problem about putting the pencil in backwards. I figured it was just an accident the first time it happened, but then after it happened a second time.......that was it - now it is off limits. But even after two close calls, it is still fine! Thank goodness
