Why Kids Turn Pencils and Erasers into Action Figures: A Teacher’s Take on Classroom Boredom
I remember it clearly, even though it was four years ago. I was sitting in class, probably somewhere around fourth period, and I was bored. Not the kind of bored where you’re tired, and not the kind where you’re frustrated. It was the kind of bored where the clock seems to be doing laps and the teacher’s voice has turned into a low hum. I didn’t have action figures in my backpack. Most of us didn’t. So I looked down at my desk and saw a pencil and a eraser. And I thought, okay. These are my guys now.
The pencil was the brave one. Strong, pointy, always ready to move forward. The eraser was the reluctant sidekick—soft, worn down, not sure why he kept getting dragged into things. I gave them voices, conflicts, loyalties. At some point they were trying to get off the desk and into the backpack, which was a mountain range. There was a whole scene where the eraser got too worn down and had to be “retired,” and the pencil had to go on alone. Then I found a better eraser under an old test paper, and that became the plot twist.
I did this for weeks. Gradually, I made up arcs for everything. The pencil cup on the teacher’s desk was a kingdom. The edge of my notebook was a cliff. A bent paperclip was a bridge. I didn’t know the word “story arc” back then, but that’s what I was building. I was making arcs of everything.
Looking back as an adult, I can see what was really happening. I wasn’t being bad. I wasn’t even avoiding work on purpose. I was a kid with a brain that needed stimulation, and the lesson wasn’t giving me enough. So I made my own.
Kids do this all the time. A paperclip becomes a robot. A pencil becomes a spaceship. A red pen becomes the villain. It looks like goofing off, and sometimes it is. But a lot of times, it’s actually a sign of something more interesting: the child is trying to stay engaged in a situation where they have no real control. They can’t leave. They can’t change the topic. They can’t make the class more exciting. So they quietly build a tiny world where they are the writer, the director, and the main character.
That’s not a bad thing. In fact, it’s a pretty smart coping mechanism.
I remember getting caught a few times. One teacher looked at me and said, “What is that?” I froze. I had the pencil and eraser posed in the middle of a dramatic moment—the eraser was about to sacrifice himself to save the pencil from falling off the desk. I didn’t know how to explain that. I just said, “Nothing.” She looked at me for a second and then said, “Put them back in the pencil box. You can play with them at recess.” She didn’t take them away. She didn’t make a thing about it. She just set a boundary and moved on.
I think that was probably the right call. Because the second she said that, I put them away, and I actually paid attention for a few minutes. And later, at recess, I pulled them out again and kept going. She didn’t punish the impulse; she just gave it a container.
That’s something parents and teachers can actually use. It’s easy to see a child fiddling with school supplies and assume they’re distracted. But the distraction is often a symptom. The real issue is that the child is under-stimulated, or over-stimulated, or anxious, or dealing with something they can’t put into words. The pencil-and-eraser thing is their way of regulating.
So what can you do when you see it happening? First, try not to swoop in right away. If the kid isn’t disrupting anyone else, and the noise level is fine, let it go for a minute. Watch what they’re doing. Are they making a story? Are they just fidgeting because they’re nervous? Are they trying to avoid the work because it’s too hard? The object play can be a clue.
If you need to redirect, do it with a clear limit, not a lecture. “The pencil and eraser can stay on your desk, but they have to stay quiet while I’m talking.” Or “You can play with those after you finish this question.” That’s a real, practical phrase. It acknowledges what the child wants to do without turning it into a conflict.
Another thing that works well is giving the child a better option. Not a lecture about paying attention—an actual replacement. A lump of clay, a few paper clips, a small sticky note they can draw on. The goal isn’t to get rid of the fidgeting. It’s to give the kid something that won’t get them in trouble. I’ve seen teachers keep a small basket of “quiet tools” at the front of the room: pipe cleaners, blank index cards, little plastic rings. That way, when a student starts turning their pencil into a character, the teacher can say, “Your pencil needs to rest right now. Pick something from the basket instead.”
That works because it’s not a punishment. It’s an exchange. The child still gets to move their hands and build their little world. The teacher gets to keep the actual pencil in use for note-taking. It’s a fair compromise.
I also think it helps to remember that this kind of play isn’t just “wasting time.” When a kid makes up a story arc for a pencil and an eraser, they’re practicing a lot of skills. They’re thinking about cause and effect: if this character falls off the desk, what happens next? They’re working through social ideas, like conflict and trust. They’re practicing persistence: the eraser kept failing, but the next eraser was better. It’s not a finished piece of writing or a drawing, but it’s creative work. And creative work doesn’t always look like a project.
There was one arc I remember more than the others. The pencil and the eraser had to get from one side of the desk to the other without being seen by the “giant hand” (which was my own hand, moving toward them realistically). They had to crawl under a ruler, hide behind a stack of sticky notes, and wait until the hand moved away. It was genuinely exciting. My heart was pounding a little. And when they made it, I felt this small sense of victory.
I never told anyone about that story. It felt private. But now I think that was actually part of why I could get through those long school days. I had this little secret world I could go to when the real world got too slow. It wasn’t a problem to solve. It was a resource.
Not every child will do the pencil-and-eraser thing. Some will tap their feet. Some will doodle in the margins. Some will stare out the window. But underneath, it’s the same impulse: a kid trying to stay themselves in a place that doesn’t give them a lot of room to move. The worst thing we can do is treat that impulse like it’s bad. The best thing we can do is notice it, respect it, and maybe give it a little space.
I don’t know what that teacher thought when she saw me playing with my pencil and eraser. Maybe she just didn’t have the energy to deal with it. Maybe she understood exactly what I was doing. Either way, she let me keep my little world. And that small bit of freedom made the rest of the class easier to sit through.
I still have a pencil on my desk at home. Sometimes, when I’m stuck on something, I pick it up and turn it over in my fingers. I don’t make up stories for it anymore. But sometimes, for a second, I remember the eraser who almost fell off the edge of the notebook, and how the pencil saved him at the last second. It’s a good memory.
And honestly, I’d rather have that memory than whatever the lesson was that day.
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