Our Elf is Here!

My kids were so super excited when I introduced our Elf on the Shelf.  We read the story together and talked about how you cannot touch the elf or he loses his magic! But first you have to give your Elf a name.  My kids brainstormed some crazy names for our Elf and when the voting was done we were left with.....Wings!!! haha Then we talked about how the Elf is a great listener, but Santa does not let him talk to children. Throughout the rest of the day I would overhear students going up to Wings and telling him what they want for Christmas... you know, the little things...an itouch, a nintendo, a new baby brother!!

Every night Wings flies back to the North Pole and reports to Santa.  When he comes back in the morning he is always in a different spot in the classroom...On Thursday he was fishing for some goldfish 

 

Then, this morning he made our cooking activity for us! We were supposed to be making reindeer cookies in our morning center..but Wings got to it first.

 

He even squirted some icing onto our feeling picture cards and turned those frowns, upside down!!

So fun!!

I know there are a couple other teachers doing Elf on the Shelf as well. If you are, let me know if you have some good classroom ideas! My teacher bff next door (who just started blogging) has a little Elf of her own named Sparkles! Check out her blog over at Paste and Pearls and become one of her followers!!

Holiday Ideas

Our school actually has off this whole week of Thanksgiving, which is SO nice! On Friday before I left school, I made sure to prep some projects for the week we get back.  I am going to teach Christmas and Hanukkah the first week so I can get some cute projects hung around the classroom and on our bulletin boards. Some of the things I prepped were..

A super easy and cute reindeer.  You just need to cut tan paper in half (long ways) and the rest the kids do on their own with scrap paper. I do not give them any patterns for this one!

A menorah.  Another easy one to prep :)

This one I let the kids choose which one they want to make.  I give them a single hole puncher to punch the holes then they put tissue paper on the back. These are great to hang up on windows if your classroom is lucky enough to have them! (I unfortunately am not)

 I also prepped a bunch of CUTE projects that I found on pinterest..

Kids write about what they would do if Santa was stuck in their chimney... (great vocab word for my students because I am sure some of them have never seen a chimney living in south Florida!)

Super cute 'reindeer tryouts' from Mrs Morrow's Kindergarten

Cute wreath from Our Small-Town Idaho Life

  And a super cute project where you Read The Best Christmas Present of All and kids write about what they think the best gift of all is (cannot be store bought).   

I am also hoping to do this to my classroom door on Monday...another thing I found on pinterest :)

 Simple but cute!

So much to do :) But so much fun!!

I hope everyone is enjoying their break!!  

October Activities

This is kind of a random post, but I wanted to share some cute activities that we did this month.  Last week we learned all about bats and at our Friday Cafe we made some of our own, YUM!

  

This week we talked more about spiders.  The children did SUCH a good job on their spider books.  I love them!! If you want a copy I am attaching the link.  When you put the book in for copies...copy page 1 and 2 front and back and page 3 and 4 front and back.  It is much easier to prep that way! :)

 My students also worked on some Halloween Riddles.  

 Give all the students a 'flip book'

 Then have them glue on their riddles and try to answer them.

 Have the students open it up and draw a picture of the answer!

Get your own Riddles here

Red Ribbon Week and Pumpkin Decorating Contest!

There are so many exciting events coming up at our school..and they are all turning into a competition!! Ahh that makes me nervous!! Next week is Red Ribbon week.  Our school does something different everyday..Walk Away From Drugs (kids wear their favorite shoes and crazy socks), Put A Cap on Drugs (wear a cap to school), Hugs Not Drugs (bring your favorite stuffed animal to school), etc.  Well...we also have a 'decorate your door' contest.  I was walking out of school today, only to see this door..

How can I possibly beat the cuteness of this door? I Love it!! I am taking suggestions :)

We also have our annual storybook pumpkin contest coming up. This morning my class decorated our pumpkin.  They worked so hard together, I was so proud of them! We had a painting station, hand tracing/cutting station, decorating letter station, even some students punching holes...they pretty much did the entire thing!! And look at how our pumpkin turned out...

 Can you guess what book we did?? 

I am excited to see what all the other classes came up with this year! I am sure they are amazing!!