I saw this post listed on the Freshly Pressed page of WordPress. I was immediately drawn to it because of the bright and shiny picture of the “magical” 64 color box of Crayola crayons. The difference between me and the writer is that I am a color-order nazi and would rearrange my crayons into rainbow order. It never even occurred to me to leave them in the order that they were sent in. I also have a “Mine” and “Their’s” supply of pencils, crayons, markers, etc. available for students. In one of my classrooms, I have a closed-off office and can keep my supply safely on my desk. In my other classroom, I have to always have the eagle eye on my desk to make sure they don’t use my pencils with erasers still on, my non-dried out markers with the caps all on the correct colors, and my color pencils with their carefully sharpened points. I try to instill in my students the ability to care for the materials, even though they don’t belong to only themselves. I always praise the students that I see caring for our materials and fixing those markers with the wrong color caps. How is that not a good lesson to teach??? Take care of your stuff and it will last much much longer!!! (Duh.)
The Crayon Facist
tinyartroom 
This is about every other teacher I’ve ever met haha. Totally understandable though, I did this with my younger siblings, I had a “borrow” pile and a “don’t touch or I will kill you box”. 🙂
Your crayon photo takes my breath away! Thanks for the link!
Loved your post! As soon as I started reading it I was like, “did I write this in my sleep?”
You are preaching to the choir, sister! My student’s touch my stuff once, they’ll never do it again!LOL