I forgot my pencil!

What do you do with the students who come to class without a pencil?

I cannot count the number of students that come to class without anything to write with.  There are lots excuses for this including:
1. They simply forget.
2. They don't want to complete any work.
3. They want an excuse to leave class and go back to their locker.
4. They can't afford to buy supplies or have no way to get to a store.

Whatever their excuse is, we as teachers need to do our best to make sure that the "I don't have a pencil" disruption does not occur in the middle of our lesson.

Here are a few things you may want to try:

1. If the student cannot borrow one from someone, then they will have to copy their note out at lunch of after school.

2. Buy pencils in bulk or ask parents to send in a package of 10 pencils with their child at the beginning of the year.

3. Have a can on your desk where students can deposit $0.25 to buy a pencil from you.

4. Allow students to borrow pencils, but they must loan you something of theirs to ensure you get your pencil back.  (a shoe, Ipod, backpack, etc)

5. Check with the school janitors and custodians.  Some have a stash of pencils they've collected off of the floor that you could loan to your students.

6. Buy a large box of golf pencils... you know the ones!  They are cheap and students usually don't walk away with them.  I found a teacher that recommended this site to buy golf pencils for only $0.01 each! 

I find different solutions work in different classrooms.  Try a few out and see what works best with yours  :)

What do you do in your class?  I'd love to hear from you!