Jingle is HERE......

So, we have a new addition to our classroom.  His name is Jingle Bells, but we call him Jingle for short.  He is our Elf on the Shelf.  We LOVE him!!!!  Last Thursday, while the kid-o's went to P.E. I set up the Christmas tree, and place Jingle on top.  I also wrapped up the "Elf on the Shelf" book, and set it under the tree.  When I went to pick them up, I surprised them with no nap time.  I asked them to meet me on the carpet.  When they walked in, they saw the tree and went CRAZY!!  When they finally realized that we had an ELF on the tree, they were even more excited.  Finally they calmed down, and handed me the present.  I opened the card from Santa first.  In it, Santa told the kid-o's that he knew Ms. Britney was SO forgetful that he sent Jingle down with a Christmas tree.  I opened the present, and we read the book.  The kids were captivated by Jingle's magic.  All day long they would walk up to the tree and whisper things to Jingle.  It was the cutest thing!! 

Friday, the kids were surprised to see that Jingle had decorated our entire classroom!!  He was hanging in the blinds next to the Christmas lights. 

Yesterday, the kid-o's found him hiding in one of my clear Rubbermaid containers on a shelf.  He was sleepy, and found him a cozy place to sleep. 

Today, they found him on top of our smart board, laying on a speaker.  His favorite music is Christmas (of course), so they figured he fell asleep rocking out to the music. 

Tomorrow, I haven't figured out yet.  I guess we will have to wait and see.

Now, even though Jingle is our fun Christmas Elf.  We are also intertwining a little educational activities with him.  Every morning, the kids come in the classroom, and they quietly look for Jingle.  If they are loud, Jingle will get scared and never show himself.  When the find him, they don't announce it or tell anyone.  They get their journal, and copy the writing prompt: "Today I saw jingle _______."  They have to fill in where they found him, and draw a picture of it. 

Everyday Jingle brings us a new book to read.  He also brings us a new activity to do every day.  We have tons of activities to do this month. 

Last Thursday, we kicked off the month with our word family Christmas trees.  I paired each student up, and they got a word family wheel to share.  They chose the word family.  They then had to write down 5 words from the wheel on a sheet of paper.  After I approved the words, and the handwriting, they were given 5 different ornaments.  They wrote one word on each ornament, and then glued it to the tree.  On the top of the tree we glued the star.  On the star was the name of each word family.  ex. -at, -ap, -it. 

On Friday, we got to make paper chains to hang up in the classroom.  My kids LOVE making chains.  We make them for every holiday.  We chose to do a/b patterns.  Some branched out and did a/a/b patterns.  We only used red and green.  They loved that.

We also painted foam snowflakes, and glued our pictures in the middle.  These are hanging over our tables. 

Today, we made Rudolph.  We also did a writing activity that went with the Reindeer.  Tomorrow I will try to upload pictures of everything we have been doing.  But, for now, I am logging off, and FINALLY after a long day of kinder-kids and a group of drama kids, I am HEADING HOME!!!!  Well, to town to pick more classroom things up OF COURSE, but eventually I will HEAD HOME!!!!