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! 

Fall Fun in the Classroom

So most of you probably already know that I am a Pre-K teacher and I teach an inclusion class of kids from ages 3-newly turned 5 year olds. Some of you may not be familiar with the term "inclusion class"... what this means is that I have a mix of typically developing children who are in the VPK program (a free 3 hours) but whose parents all pay to have them stay the rest of the day and ESE students (Exceptional Student Education) who have a varying degree of exceptionalities/disabilities. My breakdown has been 10 typical and 8 ESE the last 3 years and the most common exceptionalities have been autism and speech/language impaired but almost all of them come in with a generic "label" of Developmentally Delayed and it's our job (I find some teachers push for it more than others) to get the testing and get the appropriate label before they enter Kindergarten. When you have such a diverse group every day is a big challenge to feel like you are meeting everyone's needs but luckily I have 2 awesome aides who help me so much every day and I feel like we do a very good job ;)  Anyways that was a long winded intro to the following pictures but I wanted to share some of the things that we did in my classroom in October that the kids loved :)  I have pinterest to help me keep up with activities that I want to do with my own kids one day but I'm hoping to keep a record on the blog of some of the pinterest activities I've done that are successful and some of my own activities!

The kids enjoyed making these spider webs. I punched holes around a paper plate and cut yarn in various lengths (longer pieces for the kids who I knew had the attention span and ability to sit there and work on it for awhile).  Some of the kids would ask for direction in which hole to put it in b/c they wanted it to be just like the example one I made and others just went to town stringing it wherever on their own. I had to get a few tangles out but all in all it went well (I did it in small groups with me rather than all at once). When they were finished they picked 2 spider rings to attach to it.  You can see the whole bulletin board below. 

We also made candy corn. I had a parent volunteer cut out the black templates but the kids tore all of the colored pieces themselves and then glued them on accordingly. My aide Melissa worked on these with the kids and the tearing was good for fine motor and the colors were good for sorting.  

We also made these ghosts... I'd say about 80% of the kids have not mastered the skill of using scissors yet so everything but the streamers was pre-cut by an adult. The kids used the glue bottles, the tape dispensers, and the scissors to cut the streamers. It was easiest to have them cut only the streamers b/c we could quickly give them a refresher on how to hold the scissors and cut with a little forward progression. 

We did several other fun things in October including our Fall Party which included this giant glow in the dark bubble. There is a fan that keeps it inflated and 2 black lights inside. An adult read each small group a story inside the bubble where they wore glow necklaces and bracelets and got to hold flashlights. It's a big hit every year. Our former SLP made the bubble years ago and I was lucky enough to inherit it! 

I hope everyone had a wonderful October!!