Elf on the (Classroom) Shelf!

 

 

Hello, friends!

 

It’s been way too long. The last few months have been very hectic and the end of the school year is fast approaching here in Australia. Friday is our last day and after our Summer break I’ll return to a brand new group of Foundation students.

But, it’s December, and that means the Elf on the Shelf is back and up to mischief.

In November my students wrote to Elfina (who has quite the reputation now) to see if she would visit for a third year.

Lo and behold, on the 1st day of December, look who turned up:

 

She made special books for the kids…

 

Someone needs to buy Elfina some skydiving lessons… she always lands on the fan and gets stuck…

 

We had a new elf visit for the day. Buddy was travelling between houses and spent some time checking up on us for the day.

 

Efina and Toby hung out reading Christmas books today.

 

Elfina’s friend from one of the Grade 1 classrooms, Mr. Magic, returned our Pigeon… and a bus!

 

Today was a chilled out day in the stockings. The kiddos were greatly relieved she wasn’t in the day’s stocking.

 

Every year Elfina has a marshmallow fight with Hush. Round Three. Not sure who won…

 

 

Do YOU want to build a snowman?

 

Elfina and Mr. Magic had some fun with the photocopier. These are two cheeky elves!

 

Check out Elfina and Mr. Magic’s other adventures on Instagram, and let me know if you’re doing Elf on the Shelf, too. I love seeing other people’s ideas!

Happy Sunday!

Five for Friday

Oh, my! It’s been a while since I updated the blog – apologies! It’s the Silly Season, for sure!

#1

Oh. My. Goodness. It’s December. Last weekend I started decorating my planner for the festive season!

#2

Elfina made her grand return to Room 16 this week on the first of December, express from the North Pole (sorry, forgot to take a photo in all the excitement!). Since then she’s wrecked havoc with the school photocopiers, become mates with The Pigeon, spied on the Grade 3/4s across the hall and hung around the class Christmas tree during Maths Fun Day (after a suggestion from one of my Grade 1s that it might be a safe place for her with so many unfamiliar faces wandering in and out of the classroom all day!).

I have some wonderful teachers (and a wonderful prin) who have played along with the kids and made it extra special for them this year. It’s been a great first week with our Elf on the Shelf.

#3

I’m so lucky to come home and have cuddles with this cutie!

#4

I opened an Etsy Store a little while ago. It’s still in it’s infant-stages at the moment, but I plan to sell a whole lot of planner pages for Filofax/Kikki-K style planners. I’ve been busy working on different designs and they’ll go up some time in the new year. Plus, there’s some fun journaling card pages listed, too! I’d love for you to check out my store: The Noveltea Corner

#5

I’ve added my first-ever set of graphics to my TeachersPayTeachers store this week – a set of unique backgrounds. All, save for one, have elements of transparency so they can be layered over other images/colours. There are 10 in all and I’m quite proud of them! Check them out here.

Thanks for stopping by this week!

What have you been up to?

Elfin’ Around (Week 2)

I have to say, I’m having an absolute ball with the Elf on the Shelf.

So are the kids. At a time of year when getting any response out of them (on ANYTHING) is like pulling teeth, they come into the classroom every day and the first thing they ask is ‘Where is she?‘ And then they write in their elf journals without complaint.

I’ve only got 5 days until I farewell my current class for another year (yes, there will be tears) and it’s a pretty special daily activity that we’ve been doing all December long.

Here’s a recap of this week’s adventures!

We finally got our Aussie Animals Collector’s Album. (One of our Supermarkets ran a promotion earlier in the year giving away free animal trading cards – they’re FABULOUS – and we collected 2 complete sets as a class!) Elfina decided to share some facts with Hello Kitty and Eddie the Teddy!

One of the boys bought Elfina a Christmas present, so Elfina wrote a thank you letter and hung out with the Toy Solider.

She then took a spin in a very spiffy-looking car. Not sure she has a license, though.

Elfina decided to observe the classroom from a higher perch…

… only to be blown down by a gust of wind coming through our window!

(Oh my goodness, you should have HEARD the distress from my kids – she fell down right in front of them. They were distraught because they couldn’t help her!)

But, we had a chat and decided that she needed to be able to help herself. We were going to be out of the classroom for a bit, so the kids whispered words of encouragement to Elfina on the way out and hoped she would be okay. We even left a message for her:

… and she replied to us. They were VERY RELIEVED when we got back to the classroom.

The next day, Elfina continued to hang around the whiteboard with this vaguely creepy reminder…

Then she had a minor parachuting accident on Thursday. The kids’ theory was that she was coming back from the North Pole and got stuck on our ceiling fan.

A few very clever little kids suggested using our feather duster handle to help her down without touching her!

On Friday we witnessed The Great Marshmallow Fight of 2013. Elfina vs. Hush (from Possum Magic) and Wally (our take-home wombat from Wombat Stew). This was VERY popular!

And that’s it for another week! My next post will probably be AFTER I have said goodbye to my kiddos – it’s a very busy week – but I’ll be back to share the final chapter of Elfina’s adventures.

I hope everyone has a fabulous week!

Elfin’ Around (Week 1) plus FREEBIES!

This year I’ve jumped on the Elf on a Shelf bandwagon, and my class and I are having a ball.

It all started on November 29th, when my Principal got a special delivery, that was very cold and very fragile, and addressed to my class. (My Prin was awesome – she played it up so well for the kids who were just GIDDY with excitement.) She let them all feel the box and had a wonderful conversation going with them.

Then we opened the box…

Our elf – as yet unnamed – arrived complete with her book and a special Merry Christmas banner for our classroom. She watched the class from the box for the rest of the day.

By a very democratic vote, she was named Elfina by the children in the class.

What was really, really lovely, though – at lunchtime (just after she arrived), a group of my Grade 1 girls were running around to the yard duty teachers to tell them all about the elf that had arrived to watch their classroom and report back to Santa. Their excitement was just gorgeous.

And it’s yet to disappear.

Every morning this week the students have run into the classroom and LOOKED for Elfina to see what she’s gotten up to. They usually drag along parents, grandparents, siblings, and anyone else they can find to see what she’s been doing.

Here’s our week in pictures:

On Monday, Elfina hung up our Merry Christmas banner… then hung around and watched the class from the wall for the day.

On Monday afternoon we were building things with Lego… so when we came in on Tuesday morning, Elfina and Pete had been hard at work building a house and a Christmas tree!

On Wednesday she got tangled up in the Christmas lights she bought the class for our Christmas tree.

(Side note – it was pouring down with rain on Wednesday and the kids were stuck inside ALL DAY. Whenever someone walked into the room, the first thing the kids shouted out was ‘DON’T TOUCH THE ELF! SHE’LL LOSE HER MAGIC!!’ So not kidding!)

On Thursday, Elfina took a nap in the tissue box. Popular theory is she was partying at the North Pole over night. 😉

The kiddos were quite put out by the fact that they couldn’t access the tissue box. We had to dig out a spare box for the day. Just in case.

Earlier in the week we made ELF acrostic poems and the kiddos drew their own elves to decorate their poems.

Well… Elfina spotted a remarkably accurate likeness on the wall and had to point it out!

We also spend 15-20 minutes each day journalling about Elfina’s adventures in our An Elf’s Life journals. (I forgot to take photos – but I’ll take some next week to share because they’re just GORGEOUS!) My kiddos have done such a wonderful job on them. We brainstorm a list of important words they might need for the one or two sentences and then they go and write. I don’t have to prompt – they’re SO excited to write about what Elfina is doing that there are no complaints, no one sitting around staring into space…

Seriously, I need something like this all year ’round!

If you haven’t grabbed my An Elf’s Life freebie, yet, just click the link or the image below to download it.

AND… as an added bonus for all of you elf-loving folk, I’ve got a class book template for you all to use:

(BLM cover included)

Just click on either image to download the freebie!

So… that’s been my week with the elf. I’ll have more pictures next Friday of our adventures. (Alternatively, if you follow my on Instagram, you’ll catch them a bit earlier!)

Enjoy your weekend, lovelies!

The Elf on the Shelf is coming… (Freebie!)

Okay, so technically the elf is hiding on my bookshelf in the classroom. (But shhh! don’t tell my kiddos that!)

Yes, folks, I am jumping on the bandwagon of the Elf on the Shelf – and what a fun bandwagon it appears to be! I’m super excited about it. I’ve even plotted out the different adventures our elf will have in my diary so that I remember.

Today, though, I broached the topic with my K/1s to get a feel for where their heads were at. (My Grade 1s like to remind me that I’m the person behind the Table Fairy points… I swear I’m not!)

We talked about how Santa knows who’s been naughty and nice. I got some really great responses, like the Santas in the shopping centres are actually reporting back to the real Santa at the North Pole, and that Mums and Dads and teachers also report to Santa. Then we talked about Santa’s special helpers and how sometimes – if kids are really good – Santa sends a special elf to watch over the classrooms.

… it worked like a charm.

Can I just say, my kiddos are SUPER excited and can’t wait for our elf to make their Grand Entrance on Friday.

I’ll be sure to post some photos of what the elf gets up to!

But, in the meantime, I have a freebie for you – for those of you who have your very own Elf on the Shelf. (And even if you don’t, this would make a cute creative writing task!) Plus, hey – FREEBIE!

Simply click on the image above to download your freebie!