The pencil sharpener is a necessary beast in a classroom that requires as much management as five new students. If you don’t have a plan for your pencil sharpener, that one little machine will drive you over the edge of sanity. It doesn’t matter if your sharpener is a manual one that could be found in a 1956 classroom or you have a fabulous one that is the first cousin to a wood chipper, all varieties in between can create lost instructional time in your classroom. If your pencil sharpener is manual, it is the next best thing to a toy. If your pencil sharpener  happens to be electric, it is even more fun to play with. It is also conveniently accessible so everybody who is tired of sitting, will start breaking pencil points for the opportunity to get up and move around. In addition, the incessant grinding of a pencil sharpener will disrupt your instruction all. day. long. 

That pencil sharpener is a curiosity. You will have students who wonder how that thing works. They will sharpen 52 pencils down to the nub just observing the fresh point, and breaking it again to watch it again. You will have someone who wonders if that thing will sharpen crayons. You will have another who wonders what will happen if you insert the wrong end of the pencil into the sharpener. You will have even another who wants to sharpen every colored pencil in their pouch. If you don’t have a plan for the sharpener, it will take over your classroom. 

It is my recommendation that sharpening pencils becomes someone’s job. Have a can full of sharpened pencils that students can trade if their pencil breaks. Have another can for broken pencils that need to be sharpened. At a designated time of the day, the helper in charge of pencils should go sharpen every pencil in the broken can. Students should use that same time to reclaim their pencils that they put in the broken can. Having only one student at a time with access to the sharpener will save instructional time as well as prolong the life of your pencil sharpener. 

It is barely worth noting that if your pencil sharpener gets jammed or otherwise destroyed during the year, it is likely that it will be next year before it gets replaced. Therefore if you create a plan, limiting access, you will be more likely to have as little disruption as possible that can be created by that one little necessary, aggravating, overworked, often abused, simple machine.