I have a little secret. A pet peeve, really. It seems simple, but for me it is worse than fingers running over a comb (shivers just ran down my spine even thinking of that sound). I absolutely despise an unsharpened pencil. As in refuse to use a pencil that isn’t sharpened to a point. In fact, I love those little clicky pencils that you can just push a button and voila-a sharp pencil tip. I have actually always been like this. For every test I had at least four sharpened pencils on my desk. What I did not know until my son started school, was how much I would despise sharpening pencils. Sixty. It was supposed to be forty but I wanted to be nice. Nope, didn’t think about pre-sharpened. I was new at this pencil-sharpening thing. But now I know.
However, now I am also in the know of a fancy little sharpener that is fun to use. Yes, I said it, a pencil sharpener that is fun to use. Made by a teacher and sold on Classroom Friendly Supplies, it brings you back to the days of when you would get to walk over to the pencil sharpener that was attached to the wall and grind that pencil to a point as the shavings tickled your nose. If you remember, though, you used to have to slightly turn the pencil as you sharpened it in order to get it to sharpen evenly. My new sharpener doesn’t make me do this. My new sharpener is, in a word, AWESOME!
I actually owe my newfound love to my friend. She saw it somewhere and told me I should review it. Apparently I am not the only one with a weird sharp-pencil thing. When it first came, I just kind of looked at it for a few minutes, wondering what was so special about it (I was also wondering where the instructions were. In all honesty, you don’t really need them once you figure it out, but this may have been the ONLY downside as it took me a bit to figure out how to get it anchored and why it wasn’t sharpening.) There is an instructional video on the website though, for those like me that need a bit of help. So, as silly as it may sound, here are the instructions.
- Pull the front portion of the sharpener straight out.
- Push the two black tabs on top together (this is a great safety function. The pencil won’t go in otherwise, plus it holds it stable for you)
- With one hand on the top of the sharpener, use the other to turn the handle until it is no longer sharpening the pencil.
- Push the tabs together again to pull out the pencil. The front portion of the sharpener will finish retracting to the sharpener.
- Enjoy your easily sharpened pencil.
There are no places for little fingers to get caught or for daring little kids to try to sharpen their fingers. The sharpener is quiet so it won’t disturb a classroom of children trying to concentrate on a test. It is easy to empty, simply slide out the clear plastic piece-no spilled shavings. I LOVE my sharpener. LOVE IT. So much I may get one for my son’s teacher for a holiday gift. That will have to equal at least thirty volunteer hours, right? Excuse me now, while I go freshen up my lip gloss for some more kissing up. :)
