Come Meet Our Elf!

We had 3 Snow Days here in Oklahoma - Friday, Monday and Tuesday! Losing all that time meant that I was way behind with getting my Elf on the Shelf installed in our classroom. I was also hindered by the fact that my two boys ages 7 and 9 come to school with me and hang out in my classroom before and after school - which makes it hard for the Elf to work his magic if you know what I mean! Luckily our Elf somehow got delivered during one of the Snow Days - but wait, he couldn't just sit in the box indefinitely, waiting for the snow to melt and for us to come back to school, right? So Santa sent him with a little extra magic:

 We came in Wednesday morning to find the box open and this note:

 

Then we had the fun of naming him:

I was actually pulling for Pudding, but I was just relieved that "Cool Guy" didn't win!

This morning we came in to find that Chippy had climbed onto the window and had somehow managed to find a pen and Elf  notepad:

 

His note says "Pour magic water in bottom. Chippy"

So right before lunch I added the "water". By the time we left 3 hours later the tree looked like this:

It's growing snow crystals! We can't wait to see what it looks like tomorrow!

In other news, we've been going Gingerbread Crazy! We're working on comparing and contrasting:

These are my 2 new favorites. The gingerbread bear is a cute new take on this tale while this version of the Gingerbread Man has him running from different nursery rhyme characters like Humpty Dumpty! LOVE!

And:

 My kiddos were so thrilled that the Gingerbread Girl survived! We had a great connection to cause and effect too - one of my little guys said 'if she hadn't heard the old man and grandma while she was in the oven she wouldn't have known not to trust the fox!" I always have my story elements posters sitting on my desk so we can refer to them during reading and he pulled out these two:

So thrilled to see all the connections being made!

Alright, I'm off to play with Sullivan and work on report cards, have a great night!