Elliott our Classroom Elf

One of my best friends works for The Elf on the Shelf in Atlanta and let me know of a promotion that they were doing in November... they were giving away a ton of free Elves for teachers! Like thousands! So I immediately sign up to get on the list and our class Elf arrived in plenty of time for Christmas.

I knew that with my crew I'd be limited in the amount of places that I could put him and not have him be touched (for anyone without children or who aren't teachers... the Elf loses his "magic" when he is touched). So I didn't put him out until about the week before we got out because I knew someone would touch him if I put him down low... which did happen today when he was within arms reach but I had run out of places! Good thing we don't have school tomorrow and Elliott had to go back to the North Pole tonight anyways! The kids loved looking for him in the morning but I can't say it helped with their behavior other than the first day or two... the kids were SO loud and WILD these last 2 weeks!!

The first day he was in Marty the Moose's house (Marty is our class stuffed animal that different kids will take home each weekend and document their visit). I figured he was pretty safe in there b/c the kids know not to touch him during the day.

The next day he had written all over our board (I did have one little girl tell me that I was the one who did it.... I honestly don't know how more kids don't figure it out... but I guess that's the magic of Christmas and I was on the young side when I figured out the whole Santa thing!) 

After that he moved around some of the pockets in our advent calendar. 

The next day he was hanging out in our class holiday tree... nobody touched him that day (but our new friend hadn't started with us yet) 

The Elf decided that he needed to get a better look of the carpet area during instruction because the kids were talking constantly during stories!! This spot was my aide Melissa's idea and he was perched up on the flagpole. I didn't cut his hands apart which made is what made him able to hang and "grab" onto things. 

He was then hanging from the hook that our behavior chart is on... trying to inspire them to stay on green... 

Lastly today he took down a string of lights from our bulletin board and was sitting on them. 

It was fun getting to watch the kids look for him each morning and the first day was so funny b/c one of the kids freaked out because he thought his Elf from his house had beat him to school and was now in our classroom. I had to tell him that it was not his Elf from home and that it was our own :) 

Now it's time to relax and take a much needed break from school!!! I hope everyone has a wonderful holiday!!! 

Winter Pre-K Fun

Despite my threats to take the fun stuff away due to the excessive amount of hyper behavior in the classroom...we've been doing lots of winter activities : )

We've been doing lots of entries in our journals and lots of art projects....

I'm hoping that blogging some of the things we are doing in the classroom will help me remember them for my own kids one day! :) Here are a few of the crafts we've been working on....

We used plastic forks to get the textured look on the trees 

We used mini paper plates and cut out the middle to make these wreaths. (They scrunch up the tissue paper in little balls, lightly dip into a cup of glue and place it around the plate)  

Paper plate snowmen faces... I had them stretch out the cotton balls to help work on the fine motor pinching.  I did make the hats myself though.... the scissor skills for cutting out shapes aren't quite there yet 

These tissue trees are like the wreaths, I just used thick paper. Some kids get really into it and try and make the colors look like ornaments/lights and really pack them on there.... and some don't... :) 

Name Snowmen....I got this idea on Pinterest. For the kids who can't yet write their name we did it in dots and had them trace it. 

We also sponge painted some holiday items (I used the left over outline from some die cuts)... the next day we added glitter and some foam stickers. 

We have a new more winter activities lined up including pajama day next week... even though I know these special projects and days are super fun for the kids, it has been so hectic. They are SO excited for the holidays and even louder than usual! I will be glad to get back into the regular routine and push the academics again in January! 

Thanksgiving 2012... Virgin Islands Style

This year Jim and I decided that we wanted to take a trip on our own for Thanksgiving. The past few years we haven't been with family but with our good friends Chris and Caressa for the holidays which has been a lot of fun but this was the year to just get away. Growing up, American Thanksgiving wasn't a huge holiday at my house since all of our family is Canadian and Canada has their own Thanksgiving in October... so the possibility of going without turkey and stuffing for a year was ok with me. :)

We knew we wanted to go somewhere tropical so we looked up where we could go using Jim's hotel points and settled on the Westin in St. John. We had our first uneventful trip down which was so great (if you know us, you know our terrible travel luck)... no delays or cancelled flights and after the ferry ride we settled in around 8:00 on Sunday night. :)

We loved the resort... the food wasn't too overly priced, I loved the lunches, the pool was HUGE,  taxis were easy to get, and the beach was private. I was also impressed with the amount of family activities they had... huge water trampolines, floats you could check out for free (my favorite thing), a movie & popcorn night at the pool, etc. I guess I was just surprised that a lot of families with kids would go to the Westin Resort but I guess there's no reason not to :)

We also had some great meals. We loved Sun Dog Cafe in Mongoose Junction and I would definitely recommend it! It is all outdoors with shoppers walking by but we got a cozy table for two in an little alcove.  We also ate at The Fish Trap which was great too.


It was such a relaxing vacation... we only left the Resort twice and I slept about 11 hours every night which was amazing. We are usually go go go on vacations doing lots of sightseeing but it was so nice to just sit around by the pool and on the beach and read and relax. We need to take more vacations like that!

Here are a few pictures from the trip!

The view while enjoying breakfast

On my float!! 

Trampolines

Eating at Sun Dog Cafe 

On the ferry back to St. Thomas