I Found a Pen That ACTUALLY Erases, No Joke!

I LOVE cool school supplies! It is one of the ways that I know I’m meant to be a teacher – no one else really appreciates colorful tabs and post-its like we do.

Well, I have discovered my new favorite pens. Have you ever used those scratchy “erasable pens” that never really erased anything, but just tore up your paper and made a mess? These pens are NOTHING, I repeat NOTHING like those sub-par pens of years ago. Pilot FriXion Gel Pens are erasable pens that ACTUALLY erase. I know, mind….blown! I was skeptical before I tried them, but they really are fantastic! There is no “eraser” as such. When the erasing tip is rubbed against the page, it creates a little heat and the friction causes the thermo sensitive ink to disappear!

I often make mistakes when I’m quickly trying to correct or add comments to students’ papers, and I detest having to scratch something out that I didn’t mean to write. It just looks unprofessional – although I know that “everyone makes mistakes”. This way, I can still mark in pen, but it’s like my mistakes never happened!

These pens write smoothly, and are also re-fillable as well, which is a bonus!

Of course they come in lots of different colors which I take advantage of when I am correcting a students’ piece of writing multiple times – I use different colors of ink, so that they know which comment is new. And now, I can go back and erase comments, if I need to, so that a more reluctant writer can incorporate my comments into the piece of writing, but still use the draft without my hen-scratches all over the page. My students enjoy using these awesome pens during free writes, especially and they have been a bit of a reward as well, since they know that they are “Mrs. Mills’ special pens”.

As if erasable pens that really erase wasn’t enough…how about erasable highlighters? Yep! I found out that Pilot has those as well and they use the same “friction technology” to make the highlighting disappear! Now, would I give the highlighter to students and give the child free reign to highlight? Probably not. However, there are lots of applications for erasable highlighters – especially in middle school. For instance, I may have students work within a small group and each identify a certain phase in a novel by highlighting it for the purposes of a mini-lesson (and later erase the highlighting). Students could highlight key terms in a text book (and erase at the end of the chapter). Let’s face it – anything that helps kids note-take is a keeper. Kids like to highlight, in general, but to have the option to erase what they highlight really opens the doors for more activities involving text books or novels that we can’t have permanently marked.

Thank you Pilot for your innovation! Erasable Gel Pens and Highlighters! Who knew cool school supplies could make a teacher so happy?