This post is all about how to prevent students from losing their pencils. This is something I’ve been working on for my six year old son, Rashad. I’m one of those mothers that buy pencils and erasers every month because… well, he either lends them out or loses them too quickly. I would normally send his teacher a box of pencils for him, but as a teacher, I don’t want to burden her with the task (she probably has boxes for other children to deal with) and as a mother I want to train Rashad to take better care of his tools.

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How to Prevent Students from Losing their Pencils

These are ideas for keeping students’ pencil within reach:

Pencil holder Clips: One way to keep the pencils on the desks is to use adhesive pencil holder clips. Stick it on the desk (on the top is better than sticking it on the side).

Pencil Lanyards: Another way is to keep the pencil on a lanyard. I thought it best that I find a way to keep everything on a leash – pencil, eraser, and sharpener – plus a name tag.

I got the inspiration to make this from a pen lanyard when I realized that it could work for pencils too so I had to start from scratch using binder clips to attach the eraser and sharpener along the length of the lanyard. The smallest sized clip was attached to the end of the pencil and the fine loop of the lanyard was attached to that. It’s best to just check out the pictures below to get a feel of it.

I bought these items below and the lanyards…

Now it’s to be worn around the neck or wrist. Just think of it as connecting the contents of a pencil case. The lanyard is long enough that the tools you attach to it would not weigh down on the pencil as you are writing.

I couldn’t make one for Rashad and leave out his sister, Sade. Even though she takes excellent care of her tools, I try to balance my TLC time with them. This one above is hers.

Here is a variation, almost everything is tied together. I found an ergonomic eraser that can be hooked onto the ring tag. If this works, I’ll make a few more for some students in my class.

Have you thought about having a pencil rental system in your classroom? Read all about it in this blog post.