The BIGGEST EVER New Box Of Crayons !

A brand new box of crayons.  Cerulean blue. Carnation pink. Goldenrod.  I've always loved to open a brand new box of crayons.  Their names delight me and their pointy tips inspire me to color...whatever!

This is the time of year when kindergarteners come to school with nice, new school supplies: crayons, pencils, scissors, glue, glue sticks, markers, etc.  How do I teach young children to take care of their supplies?  How do I distribute them?  And where do I store all of the extra supplies until we need them?

In 23 years of teaching kindergarten, I've experimented with different ways of introducing, distributing, and storing school supplies.  For me, the best method of introducing and distributing school supplies has been a slow, thoughtful rollout of each supply.  Luckily, in our school, we have set aside the first 20 days to teach school procedures and rules.  So, each day, I plan a simple project or two around the proper use of a school supply.  Since this post is about crayons, here is how I distribute and introduce crayons.

Each child has a personalized plastic cup for his/her school supplies: a couple of pencils, 12 crayons, scissors and glue stick.  The cups are set in plastic bins on each table.  We practice taking out a color and returning it to our own cup. We also practice picking up crayons when they roll off the table.  And then we practice identifying crayons that are "gently used"  vs. broken.

I encourage my kindergarteners to use their crayons until the tips are worn down to the paper and then put them in the "Gently Used" box.  At the end of the year, a couple of teachers in our school are kind enough to send these off to be recycled into crayons for special needs students.

Now, as for the BIGGEST EVER crayon box promised by the title of this post!  A few years ago, I noticed that Trader Joe's sets out empty wine bottle cases.  I thought about how all of those compartments would be perfect for the different colors of crayons we use in kindergarten: red, yellow, blue, green, purple, orange, black, brown, white, gray, pink, and apricot/peach.

I hope you can see how I used a utility knife to cut the box down to size: 8 inches high is perfect for little arms to reach inside the box.  

 

Measure 8" from the bottom of the box.

Cut the box on all sides.

Here you see the box with the trimmed off section

Now measure and cut the compartment dividers.

Now fill your trimmed down box with sorted crayons.

It took me less than 10 minutes to create the box.  I will admit that sorting the crayons each year takes a pretty long time and makes me wonder why I hadn't purchased a FULL case of that wine at Trader Joe's! But sorting all of the crayons does eliminate the storage problem and reduces wasted time for kindergarteners searching for a replacement color.  Maybe this year I'll have the students sort the crayons in a math center.  I bet they'd enjoy helping to create the BIGGEST EVER box of crayons!