Image of erasers in the shape of french fries, cactus, basketball, alligator
iStockPhoto/Getty Images (Bread); Michael Burrell/Alamy Stock Photo (Rubber); photonic 20/Alamy Stock Photo (Geometric Eraser); Little Monster 2070/Adobe Stock (Smell); Shutterstock.com (All Other Images)
Past to Present,

The History of Erasers

By Meg Richardson
From the September 2025 Issue

Learning Objective: Students will follow the sequence of events as they learn about the history of erasers.

Lexile® measure: 450L
Featured Skill: Text Features, Key Details,
Vocabulary: stale, variety
Topic: Social Studies,
Common Core Standards
  • Social Studies Focus
    Long ago and today
  • Skill Focus
    Sequencing
  • Common Core Standards
    RI2.1 Key details RI.2.4 Vocabulary RI.2.5 Nonfiction text features RI.2.10 Read grade-2-appropriate informational texts SL.2 Participate in conversations about grade-2 texts L.2.4.a Use sentence-level context as a clue to a word’s meaning
TEKS Standards
  • Social Studies
    (13) Science, technology, and society. The student understands how science and technology have affected life, past and present. The student is expected to: (A) describe how science and technology have affected communication, transportation, and recreation; and (B) explain how science and technology have affected the ways in which people meet basic needs. (16) Social studies skills. The student communicates in written, oral, and visual forms. The student is expected to: (A) describe the order of events by using designations of time periods such as historical and present times; (B) apply vocabulary related to chronology, including past, present, and future; (C) create and interpret timelines for events in the past and present

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Imagine you are writing a story. You make a mistake. Oops! You get your eraser. Where did erasers come from?

Bread Erasers

The first erasers were different from erasers today. You could eat them!

Four hundred years ago, people used big breadcrumbs as erasers. They rubbed crumbs from old, stale bread on paper. That erased pencil marks. 

Rubber Erasers

Erasers were about to change. In 1770, a man in England was drawing. He made a mistake. 

He tried erasing it with a piece of rubber. The rubber worked better than breadcrumbs. He started selling rubber erasers.  

Erasers on Pencils

Then, erasers changed again. In 1858, an inventor glued a rubber eraser to the end of a pencil. Now, people could write and erase with the same tool.

Erasers Today

Today, erasers come in a variety of colors and shapes. There are so many different kinds! 

There are big erasers and tiny erasers. There are erasers shaped like animals and food.

smells like grapes

Some erasers even glow in the dark. Erasers can smell like strawberries, chocolate, bubble gum, and more. 

Next time you use an eraser, be glad it’s not made of old bread!

Eraser Timeline

1600s: Breadcrumb erasers

1770: Rubber erasers

1858: Erasers on pencils

2025: So many fun erasers!

Slideshows (1)
Activities (3)
Skills Activities
Answer Key (1)
Slideshows (1)
Activities (3) Download All Quizzes and Activities
Skills Activities
Answer Key (1)
In-Person Lesson Plan
Download the Lesson Plan

Implementation

  • Small group; whole group; independent reading

1. Use the Before-Reading Resources

  • Play the Vocabulary Slideshow (5 minutes)
    Help students become familiar with the vocabulary words they will see in the article.

2. Read the Article

Reading Focus: Sequencing (20 minutes)

  • Ask students to pay attention to sequencing words such as “first,” “then,” and “today” in the article. These words tell them the order of events. 
  • Point out the bar on the right side of the page. Do students know what this is? Hint: The headline tells you. (It’s a timeline.) 
  • Explain that a timeline shows the order in which things happened. You can see how long ago each thing happened on the arrow.

3. After-Reading Skills Practice

(All pages below can be printed from our website.)

  • Erasers Then and Now: (15 minutes)
    Students will draw and write about the sequence of events in the history of erasers.

You can use these skills pages to practice other skills. (15 minutes each)

  • Quiz: Comprehension check
  • Nonfiction Text Feature Hunt: Identify nonfiction text features in the article.

Text-to-Speech