Elf on the Shelf!

I admit it.  I debated.  Can my class handle having an elf this year in our classroom?  Do I want to add craziness to every morning?  Isn't it nice how they come in quietly and know exactly what to do? Do I want to add a huge dose of chaos to that?  Do I really want to dish out an extra $30 at this time of year?  Is it really worth it?

YES!  Totally worth it.  

Oh my goodness, I feel embarrassed I was even debating.  Before our elf even arrived and they were grinning ear to ear as they wrote their opinion pieces about why we should adopt a classroom elf, I knew I made the right decision.  I know they are first graders and very easy to please, but every time one of my little loves comes up to me and announces that I am the best teacher in the entire world and they love school....it is worth it.  Not because I need the ego boost, but because I know that the efforts I made were worth it- if it causes them to love school.  My whole goal is to inspire a love of learning so when I have students declare they love it, I am pretty inspired.  And honestly, there are some days it is nice to get that reassurance---the days when my laundry is a mile high, dishes are in the sink, and the quilt is setting in that I should be spending time teaching my own preschooler his letters, but I am instead, creating away on my Mac for my first graders--yes, those days it is  nice to have a touch of reassurance:)

So if you are debating as I was, I encourage you to try it.  I think that if you ground it with some meaningful academic lessons and activities, you will wonder how you ever did December without an elf:)  This isn't my first year with an elf.  My job-share partner and I have done it at least twice before (we borrowed an elf from another teacher who won it).  And honestly, I have a "tougher" group this year and wasn't convinced an elf would be more of a benefit to our classroom than a distraction.  One thing that pushed me over to just go ahead and try it again was several of my past students finding me in the halls on the first day of December asking if our elf had come back.  Fifth graders (even boys) making an effort to individually find me and ask about the elf?! If it meant that much to them and created such a warm little memory in their hearts, then how could I deny that to this year's group?

But I'm "anti-fluff," so I created a few materials to bring an academic foundation to all the fun.

My Elf on the Shelf resource can be found here in my TPT store.

So here is a peak at a few of the activities we did with our elf theme this week.

I love when they are motivated to write.  I mean really motivated.  And if you tell a group of first graders (and I just happen to know this motivation easily carries through to 2nd and 4th graders because I have my own at home:) that if they can give me some very good reasons, we might just adopt an Elf on the Shelf for our classroom, their sharp little pencils won't be pointy for long.  They will write. And they will write with such determination and enthusiasm.  For them, it is an authentic writing task.  They aren't writing just another opinion paragraph because it is one of three common core writing tasks and their teacher needs to check it off her standards check-list.  No.  They feel the magic and power behind their words.  It truly means something to them.   

Here are two of my "toughest" students' pieces.  Both of these boys had squiggly marks and blank spaces on our beginning of the year letter-sound dictation.  One spent most of his kindergarden year in the school office due to behavior and the other has great difficulty attending to tasks and we modify all of his assignments.  Can you feel their motivation?!  Love it.

So students wrote an opinion piece with a topic sentence, 2-3 reasons (more if they wanted), and a closing sentence.  I did this format because it fits the first grade common core standards.  This task can be very easily adjusted to meet your grade level's writing requirements.  If persuasive writing or letter writing are in your standards, then those would work extremely well.

 Here is the graphic organizer we used to develop our reasons.

And here are two more of the opinion paragraphs.

I was very pleased with their writing.  We did share our reasons together, but the writing was done independently and the only editing was self-editing.

They were very excited when I told them I was convinced by their reasons to adopt the elf.   When our special North Pole delivery arrived, we read the story and quickly came up with a name for him so he would gain his magic.

We voted and our elf is Jack!  I have a cute bar graph (in my TPT resource) to do with my students that shows the breakdown of the voting.  I ran out of time, but still plan do this with my students next week.

Every morning, the students write down where they find Jack in their Elf Journals. This helps keep it calmer in the morning as they rush down the hallway to see where he landed (but at least they are excited to come into the classroom)!  They know they are not allowed to tell each other where Jack is each day.  Instead, they are allowed to find him, complete their regular morning routine, and write in their Elf Journal before we get started with our lessons.  These journals will make a great little memory book to take home as well.  Jack brought gummy candy canes (one on each student's desk) from the North Pole on his first morning back.  Here are a few of their first entries in their Elf Journals.

To tie in with an elf theme, we did a few other activities during the week.  In my last post, I mentioned that this month I am focusing on taking a "Reciprocal Teaching Strategy" a week to focus on.  Last week was making predictions.  This week, we added asking questions.  We did some whole class and cooperative learning activities where students wrote down their questions before, during, and after reading.  We read The Littlest Elf and Elf Help.  We continued to make predictions, but the modeling and focus was on asking questions.  We also worked with identifying the setting, characters, problem, solution, and theme in the stories.

  

Through our questioning, we talked a lot about the different jobs elves can have.  Our Elf on the Shelf is a scout elf.  The littlest elf tries baking, bike making, book making, and gift wrapping before discovering what job fits his strengths best.  In Elf Help, the main character also struggles with finding a role as an elf that fits his strengths.  After reading these stories, the students did some creative brainstorming about what jobs they imagine the elves to have at the North Pole.

They then very happily complete their very first job application.  Yes, no surprise-an elf application.  Although these are simple, not very time-consuming applications, the students put a lot of thought into selecting which type of elf job would be best suited to their individual strengths.  We had some great discussions and made lots of connections to the characters in the stories we read as they completed these.  I found the free elf template here that holds their application.  The application is in my elf TPT resource.  I usually like to allow students to make the construction paper elves while I'm meeting with small reading groups, but this year we just tackled it altogether and although it took a bit of our classroom time, they really enjoyed making them.

And in math, our focus is on using related facts so I couldn't think of much more than task cards with elves to tie in our theme.  But these cards were great for differentiating.  

They are part of my fact family task card set found here.  

You can read about how I use task cards and teach math in small groups in my post about Guided Math.  You can also see the other fact family task cards included in my Olive, the Other Reindeer post here.

I hope if you were debating about getting an Elf, this convinced you to give it a go!  Not only did it inspire some great learning opportunities, it is just simply magical to watch their wonder and love for our elf!

Next week, I'm so looking forward to our Grinch Day!  I'm excited to see how their "What Christmas Means to Me" mini books turn out.   This will be one of their writing responses to the Grinch and another story we read to learn the importance and power of knowing a story's theme.