Elf Antics: Last Day!

This post is a quite a bit late, sorry!

The last day before our holiday break we found Dash hanging out on top of our white board where he could see the whole room:

On every desk he left a little treat! We could tell it was him that left it, because there was glitter sprinkled everywhere as well. 

 We were a little pressed for time due to the holiday sing a long that morning, but we managed to fill out our last day of our Elf Journal:

After the sing a long, we completed the entire journal by filling in some of our favorite memories from our time with Dash. We looked back through all the journal entries and laughed remembering all the silly things Dash did in our room.

Everyone was a little sad to know that Dash would not be back again, but we had so much excitement on Friday with our holiday party it helped cheer everyone up.

I hope everyone has had a wonderful holiday break. I am looking forward to seeing everyone's sweet smiling faces on Tuesday! :)

A New Suit For Santa

*I realized I forgot to actually post this a few weeks ago. Sorry!

The other day we worked on our special project from Mrs. Claus: designing a new suit for Santa. I shared some of the ideas the other day but I wanted to give you an update to show you the second part of the project.

After we created our new suit designs, each student wrote a letter to Mrs. Claus explaining why she should pick their suit design. They did such a good job using their words to explain their ideas!

Here are a couple great examples:

Elf Antics: Day 13

This morning we found Dash with a present for us!

In his letter, he told us that last night he let Santa know we would be watching the Polar Express so he sent us something special that we couldn't open until after the movie. Everyone was so excited about the present and couldn't wait to open it!

After the movie, we sat down to open the gift from Santa. Inside, we found 22 bells from Santa's sleigh!

I have to say, these kids just melted my heart with their excitement over this. As we opened it, I picked up one bell and rang it for them. They all started cheering and yelling, "we can hear it! we believe!" everyone was very happy to hear that I also could hear it ring.

I feel so blessed to be able to spend each day with each of your children. They have such sweet hearts and make me smile every day. It has been such a joy to celebrate this holiday season with them. It really is true that the holiday spirit is held in the hearts of children.

Holidays Around the World: Germany

Today we journeyed to our final country in our holidays around the world trip. It's a little bittersweet. We've had such a great time learning about how different people celebrate and collecting souvenirs, but we have some fun things planned the next two days before the break as well.

We began by finding Germany on our map.

Then we hopped aboard the Holiday Express for the last time. We watched a slideshow with pictures of traditional German Christmas celebrations, and listened to Oh Tannenbaum.

When we arrived, we got our passport stamped for the last time.

Next we watched our slideshow about holiday celebrations in Germany. This was our favorite country to learn about by far! We learned that the tradition of the Christmas tree began in Germany. One of my friends commented that we should be very thankful to them because they gave us the idea for something so great! 

We also learned about a new fun tradition: The Christmas Pickle! In Germany, families have a pickle ornament. While the children are asleep, one of the parents hides the pickle ornament somewhere in the tree. The next morning, when the kids wake up, they have to try to find the pickle. The first child to find the ornament receives a small present or prize. I shared with the class how my youngest brother learned about this tradition when he was in first grade and my family had fun celebrating with it in the years that followed.

We had two fun projects to create today as a souvenir from our trip.  First, a Christmas tree using sequins and glitter!

And even more exciting, was our Christmas pickle ornament. Everyone was VERY excited that they could teach their family about this fun tradition at home!

That's it for our trip around the world. We had such a great time! I hope your children all brought home their suitcases today and had lots of information and stories to share with you.

Tomorrow we are looking forward to Polar Express Day! Your child can wear school appropriate pajamas and bring a small stuffed animal and blanket if they would like. Should be a very fun day! :)

Elf Antics: Day 12

It looks like Dash made a new friend last night.  Look at these two "monkeying around"

In his letter to us, he mentioned that last night he ran into the desk fairy! He was so excited and wanted to follow her around everywhere.

If you look closely you can see some glitter sprinkled over the Desk Fairy's card and prize. Dash told us in his letter that since he didn't have anything else to give, he decided to make our desks pretty and leave glitter anywhere the desk fairy went.

It's getting close!

Holidays Around the World: Sweden

Today we continued on our trip around the world, stopping in Sweden to learn about their holiday celebrations. We started out locating the country on the map. 

Then we hopped aboard the Holiday Express to travel to Sweden. We listened to When It's Lamp Lighting Time in the Valley (sung in Swedish) and watched a slideshow with pictures of celebrations in Sweden. After we "arrived' we all got our passports stamped:

We read a bit online about celebrations in Sweden and learned all about St. Lucia day, then filled out our scrapbook page to help us remember our learning.

Finally, we set to work making our souvenirs from the trip. Each of the girls put together a traditional St. Lucia crown of candles:

While the boys got to work making a star hat like the boys wear during the celebration:

Such a fun morning! Only one more stop on our journey. Tomorrow we're off to Germany!

Elf Antics: Day 11

This morning we almost had a bit of an elf mishap! When we walked into the room we found Dash hanging from a paper chain he had made close to the ceiling:

However, within minutes of being in the room, some of the links from his chain started breaking apart! My friends were freaking out a bit wondering what would happen if the links holding up Dash were to break! Luckily, everyone agreed that as long as I was VERY careful not to touch him (or else he will lose his magic), I could go back through and add some staples to help it stay together.

One of my super smart friends commented that she knew why Dash used tape to put the links together: "it's because at the North Pole they wrap all the presents with tape! He must have thought that was the best thing to use and not realized that when you have tape and glitter it doesn't stick very well".  Such smart thinking!

And of course we noticed one more link was removed from Dash's countdown chain. We're getting close!

Holidays Around the World: Antarctica and Australia

Today was a fun day on our holiday trip around the world. We started out heading to Antarctica. As always, we began by finding the location on the map:

Then we hopped aboard the Holiday Express, watched a slideshow of pictures of Antarctica, and listened to Oh Tacky Tree (from the Tacky Christmas CD, LOVE this!).  When we arrived we got our passports stamped:

Then we watched our powerpoint to learn about holidays in Antarctica.  We learned that no one lives there permanently so no one really celebrates holidays there. We saw pictures of penguins, whales, and seals and learned that they all reside there.

Since there are no celebrations in Antarctica, we hopped back on our plane, watched a slideshow with pictures of Australian holiday celebrations, and listened to Aussie Christmas, to travel to Australia.

We watched our powerpoint and learned a lot about how people celebrate in Australia. We learned that it's not winter there right now, but summer, so many people celebrate Christmas on the beach!  We learned that when Santa gets to Australia he gives his reindeer a break and he surfs in to deliver the presents! How funny!

Finally we made our souvenir from the trip. An Australian holiday snow globe!

What a perfect reminder of how people in Australia celebrate!

Only two more stops on our journey around the word.  Next up, Sweden!

Elf Antics: Day 10

This morning we found Dash next to some snowflakes made of q-tips. Everyone figured out what those were very quickly, but no one was sure what exactly he was holding.

In his letter, Dash told us that he had so much fun playing in the snow at the North Pole over the weekend he wanted to bring some of it back to us. What he brought, was magic snow! He told us all we had to do was add water to the powder and watch the magic happen.

When we had some time later, we gathered around the carpet to try it out.  We were AMAZED to see the magic snow puff up when we added water. Everyone got a chance to touch the magic snow and we all agreed it was even cold just like the real stuff. The best part is, it doesn't melt! How very exciting!

And of course some of my friends noticed Dash had not forgotten to remove the links for each day of the weekend. 

Holidays Around the World: Brazil

We were pretty busy yesterday designing a new suit for Santa at the request of Mrs. Claus, but we managed to squeeze in a quick trip to Brazil to learn about how Christmas is celebrated.

As always, we started our trip by marking our destination on our map so we could see where we were headed:

Next, we hopped aboard the Holiday Express, listened to Noite Feliz, and watched a slideshow of pictures from Christmas celebrations in Brazil.  Upon landing, we got our passports stamped:

Then, we watched our powerpoint about Christmas in Brazil.  We learned that kids there call Santa Claus, Papi Noel, and that he delivers gifts to them just as Santa does to us. Everyone was jealous to hear that kids in Brazil not only get gifts on Christmas from Papi Noel, but also get gifts from the 3 wise men six days later! We learned that people there celebrate each year with a huge fireworks display, similar to what we have here on the 4th of July.

We quickly filled out our scrapbook page:

And finally we made our souvenir from the trip: fireworks!

I usually don't let the kids use glitter themselves as it can make such a mess and it's easy to waste too much of it if you don't know how to use it.  However, for this project I let them use the glitter themselves and they did a great job. I love how they purposefully put different colors of glitter in different places of the fireworks to make them rainbow colored. So pretty!

Next stop: Antarctica!

Side note: Everyone is already wondering what we will be doing there. Students have already pointed out that no one really lives there, it's just too cold. Check back Monday to see!