Organizing Colored Pencils by Shade and a Sharpening Center

Several years ago I saw a picture somewhere of sharpened colored pencils arranged by shade.  For some reason, that vision of lovely organization never left my mind and I have wanted to have a similar arrangement of colored pencils in our school room.  So, as part of my back-to-school organizational efforts this year, I did it!  My middle son was very helpful - he has a much better eye for color than I do.  As well, both of my boys helped tremendously with sharpening all of the colored pencils.

We also organized the Crayola Twistable colored pencils by shade.  The Crayola Twistables are big favorites here which I discussed in my post about my favorite non-curriculum homeschool helps.  To make the organizers, I just used some baskets I already had and old canning jars.

I also set up a sharpening center.  I got the idea from a teacher's supply catalog.  I simply put our pencil sharpeners, along with a can to hold unsharpened pencils on a small table in our school room.  Now when one of my children discovers a pencil needs sharpened, they can either quickly sharpen it or put it in the "to be sharpened" can.