Secret Ninjas

Pencils are the bane of every teacher's existence. No teacher seems to have a fool proof pencil retaining plan. Pencils disappear like nobody's business when they're in a classroom!

I set out a little yellow pail labeled SHARPENED PENCILS and a pink and red striped pail labeled UNSHARPENED PENCILS. Students are allowed to get a pencil out of the yellow can while I'm teaching, but they can't sharpen pencils. All I ask is that students return my pencils. Do they get returned? No. Is it on purpose? Not exactly. I know that students aren't evil little pencil stealing devils. They just use a pencil and forget to return it, then they forget whose pencil it is, and then it's lost forever.

At the beginning of the school year I put about 10-15 brand new pencils into the yellow pail. After about three weeks, there were no pencils left. Maybe three weeks is a record for how long pencils will last. I had a sub the next day, so I decided to re-stock my pencil pail. When I came back that Friday, there were maybe two or three pencils left. No. Stinking. WAY. Where did all of my pencils go?!
Well, I was venting to my students about how my pencils just disappear, and bless their hearts they were giving me all sorts of ideas.

"Tape plastic spoons to them!"
"Mrs. Radant is going to tape spoons to them, then put them in styrofoam and number them so that she knows if any are missing when class is almost over."

They provided several other ideas, but my favorite was the following:

"I know what you can do! If someone steals a pencil, secret ninjas could jump down from the ceiling and get them!"

I couldn't help but laugh. All I could respond was, "Ooo. That's what I need to do. Get some secret ninjas."

Man I love my students.

Today was a block day, which means 85 minutes of 7th and 8th graders with absolutely NO attention span. I decided that my classroom management needs a little bit of a booster, so combined with the fact that I did not prepare any lesson plans, I decided to review procedures like crazy. My students didn't particularly enjoy it. My 7th graders were much more up for the role playing then my too-cool-for-school 8th graders, but nevertheless, we practiced.
I felt validated for my review of procedures when I was working with one of my 8th graders. I told her to grab a piece of paper and a pencil. She asked about a pencil and then said, "Wait! We learned about this earlier!"

YES. Finally I can see my teaching get through to someone. How often are we going to have to review rules and procedures though? EVERY SINGLE DAY. My poor students are not going to like this!

-Ms. Damron-

P.S. Did I mention that I don't particularly care if they don't enjoy going over the rules every day? One of my 8th grade boys petitioned me that if they could say all of the rules perfectly for a week, we would never have to say them again. I said no because I haven't seen everyone obey them perfectly yet. Another student started singing, "Nobody's perfect..." at which point I said, "Thank-you for pointing out why we will have to repeat the rules every single day."
Bahahahaha haha for some reason they didn't laugh with me. ;)