Elf on the Shelf Door Decorating Idea and Freebie!

Last year, my very first post on my blog was about a door decorating contest we had at our school during the month of December.  Now Pinterest was around, but I was being stubborn.  I wanted to win the competition, and I thought the only way to win was to tie it into my instruction and to make it unique.  Come to find out...everyone was a winner!  Lame if you ask me, but we still had a lot of fun!

With Elf on a Shelf becoming a hot item, I thought it would be a great way to pull student interest into the activity.  Now remember, it was my very first post, so I was not all camera crazy while the kids were hard at work!  Wah wah!  Anyway, we created a little elves shop, got out some supplies, and students started working on their elves for the door.  They could pick their colors and their theme, but the trick?  They were going to have to write about it, too!

My precious little elves got to work, and started creating their own friends.  We had a green monster, a pink princess, a few Colts elves, Christmas elves, Santa elves, and my favorite (the one on top with the red and white striped pants), an IU Hoosier elf!

Yes, I am aware that the quality of this pic is bad horrible!  

Remember...first post ever photo from 12 mos. ago! 

#badbloggingetiquette

I'm sure you all can make this look SOOOO much better, but because of my stubbornness in creating something unique, I was a little late getting it up.  I used crumbled brown paper and rolled it to create the shelves.  

After they created their elf, they had to name their elf and then use descriptive words to see if others could guess which elf was theirs.  You could make the descriptive writing portion as detailed and intensive as you wish.  I put their descriptive writing on the other side of the doorway.  It would be great on a bulletin board if you could put the elves and the writing on the same board.  The students absolutely LOVED figuring out whose elf was whose based on the writing.  I had a really simple writing sheet last year, but here are some cuter ones you can use for your little elves!  Click here to download these writing sheet *FrEeBiEs* and pick the one that best fits your crew!

Also, wondering about the Elf template to help your students?  Use this link to find the templates I used from DLT-kids!  I made templates on card stock (sans the candy cane) for each table group and then let them trace them onto the colors they actually wanted.  The brads took the longest, so a parent helper would be great for putting helping to put them together! :)

I'd love to see what all of you can create with this.  Happy elfing!

A Gift that will Keep on Giving!

My sister had pointed me in the direction of an ornament someone had created using their friend's wedding invitation.  They cut the invite into strips, curled up the paper, and put the strips inside a glass ornament.  I thought it was a great idea, but I didn't have any wedding invitations to do this with, so I created my own plan.  I am the youngest of 5 siblings and have 8 nieces and nephews, so there is always a lot going on in our lives.  I had my siblings send me a sentence about each of the members in their family, and then I typed them out, made some strips, and put them in the ornament!  This is the Robinson 2011 ornament.  Each year I'll have a family gift to give, and it will become a fun timeline of events that we can look at each time we take out our ornaments to decorate the tree!  I thought this would be a fun way to remember your class each year too, if you had them write a sentence about themselves, and put it in an ornament.  I love reminiscing about students I've had in the past.  Here is an example of one of the ornaments I made!

  

Christmas Gifts

Tomorrow is our last day before break so I have, of course, been a little elf the night before getting their gifts together! It's nothing creative, and my only goal was to make it something they would enjoy, and use things that wouldn't cost me a penny!

I started with the $1 books on Scholastic and used points to order them with my last book order. When I moved rooms this past summer I came across some glow bracelets that our Sheriff's Department brought in, and I had stored away, so they will each get one this year. I then sharpened a pencil (my kids LOVE freshly

sharpened pencils this year) and threw that in. I created a Free Homework Pass to use for any subject, after getting permission from the other teachers who have my kids for math! This is sure to be a hit with all of them!
To put it all together, I grabbed brown lunch bags which I already had, punched holes in the top and wrapped a ribbon with an ornament to hang from the outside for some added decor when they walk in in the morning. The ornaments were purchased last year after Christmas and were 25 cents for 6 ornaments!

They aren't fancy, but I think the kids will be really excited to get a lot of different items, and it was really cheap to create!! Both goals accomplished.

It all has to start somewhere and Elf on a Shelf Door

Well...I only have 2 days left of school until Christmas Break, I finished my master's work and graduated on Sunday, and my Christmas decorations are up and ready for the holidays so why not add something to my list of things to do with a blog! It had to start somewhere, so here it is!!! I'm ubber-excited about it!

I've been wanting to start this for quite some time, but just kept putting it off. There are a few other blogs that I go to daily (I think that makes me a stalker) and I get inspiration from them all the time! Today is one of those days! Hope at Second Grade Shenanigans is doing a giveaway for ALL, yes ALL, of her items at her TpT store. In order to get it, I had to blog about her giveaway...so I had to start this just to be entered!! Can you tell how much I love her stuff? Check out her page for the giveaway!

I feel like I need to post something creative for my first blog, although you can tell by my page and blog title that I'm not the most creative person around! This year, our new principal wanted to have a door decorating contest for the holidays/winter. I thought and thought, and thought some more until the Elf of the Shelf concept hit me! This picture (can you tell this Blog was started on a whim...sorry about the quality of the photo!) shows the elves my kiddos created. On the other side of the doorway, they had to write clues about their elf so that visitors and friends would have to guess which elf was theirs based on the clues! It was great to work on adjectives and inferencing, while having some fun too! My kids were really creative with Colts, Hoosier, monster, fairy, and Santa elves!