Elf on the Shelf

Merry Christmas! I wanted to share my elf on the shelf activities in our classroom this year. Some of these I have done in the past but I did a few new things this year too. I am a cheapskate and I came across this elf from Oriental Trading. It was a lot cheaper than the real elf on the shelf.

Here's the link where you can get it. Oriental Trading Elf on the Shelf
This is the first note when our elf arrived. I let the kids name him. They suggested names and I wrote them on the board. Then at lunch I picked 3 that I liked and we voted on the name after lunch. We did a graph.

The day after the elf arrived, he covered the board with his name and left this note.

I also made wallet-size pictures of the elf for the kids to take home.

This was an easy one, aka a day I forgot to move the elf before I left school.

This was after a day that had been rough in my classroom.

We had written about reindeer and they got to sit in the reader's chair and use the microphone to read their writing. The elf brought them all new Christmas pencils.

I laid the elf on the copy machine and made some copies.

I wrapped the easel with wrapping paper. I've also used sticky bows in the past which is easier but kind of expensive!

We were getting ready for our Christmas concert later that week.

Another easy one. I give out stickers when the kids read and return their paper readers. So I just stuck some stickers on him.

I made a zip line in the classroom. It was a huge hit!

I wrapped up the elf's leg and pretended it was hurt.

I hid candy canes all over the classroom. They each got to find one.

We have been doing gingerbread stories in addition to elf activities.

They had their Christmas concert the night before.

I have a pet leopard gecko that has a heating lamp.

I brought a miniature tree and put it in the classroom.

I made up a little bed and threw tissues all over the floor. I made sure I told the janitor. The first year I did it, he swept up all the tissues before the kids saw them!

I put up a slide show on PowerPoint of staged pictures of my elf doing things in the classroom.

I put him up on the projector on my ceiling.

I had this sign on my classroom door. Kids arrive for breakfast before I even get to school so I caught them going into the classroom before I was there. This was a problem because some days I didn't move the elf before I left for the day and needed to do it in the morning. Also, I wanted everyone to see the elf at the same time so that some who saw it before others wouldn't spoil the daily surprise.