Teaching is a Royal Adventure: Elf on the Shelf

I absolutely LOVE having an Elf on the Shelf in our classroom! It's always a
treat seeing the children light up each morning trying to find elf. Having a classroom elf is also a great tool for behavior management.

One of the first thing we did was we watched An Elf's Story on DVD.
It was thrilling seeing how amazed the kids were watching this movie.

After the movie was over we wrote letters to Santa asking him to PLEASE send our class an elf. Then we sealed the letters in an envelope and mailed them.

The next day the front office called our room to let us know we had a package from Santa Claus. I had put the package in our freezer the night before so when the kids felt the package the next day they could feel how cold it was. I printed out a "Special Delivery" tag found at Kinder-Craze. The children were excited and couldn't believe they received a package from the North Pole. We opened the package and found a letter from Santa Claus. Our classroom elf was secretly hidden in one of our table caddies until the package was opened. Right away my students voted on the name, Chippy for our classroom elf. Here are a few pictures of Chippy in action.

We went to France in our Holidays Around the World Globe Trot with Scott.

Chippy had gotten into the Buche De Noels.

Chippy surprised us ALL!!! I thought Chippy was going to decorate our Writing Station with post-it, but when I came in to class the next morning there were the sweetest notes on my kiddos desk! It turns out a 5th grade student at our school had the idea and wanted to write an encouraging note for every student. Him and his mom put a message on every students desk or locker in our school the same night. Goodness that just completely melted my heart at such an act of kindness at how one child made such a difference.