Classroom Friendly Pencil Sharpener Review

As a home school family, we go through a lot of pencils a year. One of my biggest frustrations is not being able to find a sharpened pencil in the house. We used to have an electric pencil sharpener that I purchased while in college and used when I was teaching public school, but the downside to that is that it was loud. It eventually quit working and they are not cheap to replace and of course, if we had a power outage, we couldn't sharpen pencils.

After the electric pencil sharpener quit working, we went through numerous hand held pencil sharpeners. The major problem with those is that either the container that holds the shavings would come up missing or the entire pencil sharpener would go missing when I needed one.

My parents bought us a battery powered sharpener one year, but then I had to keep buying batteries and it still had the problem of coming up missing when I needed it most.

I had decided I wanted an old-fashion, wall mounted pencil sharpener; however, as an one-income family, we didn't have an extra $20-$30 laying around for a pencil sharpener.

Someone had linked to the Classroom Friendly Supplies page in one of the home school facebook groups in which I participate and talked about how nice their pencil sharpeners were. I immediately went to look (yes, I am a nerdy, home school mom!). I looked around and read about them and thought they sounded great and decided that I would rather have one of those than the old metal, gray ones, but I still had to wait until I had the money.

Just as I was getting ready to close out the page, I saw that they were looking for people to try the pencil sharpeners and write reviews. I submitted an application and waited to see if I would be chosen. I squealed with delight when I received the email telling me that not only had I been chosen to review it, I could pick the color of my choice! They offer five fun colors--midnight black, cool blue, firehouse red, groovy green and popular purple.

I chose a blue sharpener because blue is my favorite color. We then waited for it to arrive.

The children all gathered around me when it arrived and waited for me to open it. I was impressed with how sturdy it looked and felt. I like the fact that the compartment for the pencil shavings is clear so that we can see when it needs to be emptied before it overflows. I like being able to mount it somewhere because then my children won't walk off with it and not return it. I love how sharp of point it gives the pencils; it is nice and crisp. It is also nice that the handle spins freely when the pencil is sharpened (which creates a different sound) so that you know when it is completely sharpened.

I was a little disappointed to not find any directions on how to use the sharpener or how to mount it, but they do have directions on their website. You can print off the directions so that if you are using it in a public setting, new users will now how to use it.

I originally mounted it on the edge of my desk, but have since moved it to another location in the house. I think I like it in the new location better. The nice thing about the mount is that we can continue to move it to where we think it will work and we won't have screw holes in a wall after we move it.

It also isn't as loud as the traditional, gray, metal pencil sharpeners you usually find in schools which means anyone can use it while the little ones are sleeping and I don't have to worry about them waking up.

I highly recommend the Classroom Friendly Pencil Sharpener for any home school family, teacher in a public school, and any other place where pencil sharpeners are needed. I am highly satisfied with the pencil sharpener and have taken the old pencil sharpener off my Amazon wish list because I don't plan on using any other pencil sharpener. 

Before actually use one and enjoying it as much as I do, I don't think I would have spent the money to buy one for myself, but now that I know how great it is and how much nicer it is than other pencil sharpeners, I will gladly purchase another one if needed. However, I don't see that being a need. They do offer replacement parts so it is simple to just replace the sharpener blades instead of the entire unit. They also offer wall mounting plates if you would rather mount it on a wall.

I received a Classroom Friendly Pencil Sharpener 
for free in exchange for writing a review.