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!

Elf Antics: Day 9

Yesterday morning when we came in the room we didn't find Dash doing anything too crazy:

Upon further inspection, we realized that he had left not one but two letters for us. One was the daily letter from him, and the other was from Mrs. Claus!

Oh my goodness were we excited about our special project to help Santa! One student commented that, "we have to do this right away. If Santa finds out what happens he might put Mrs. Claus on the naughty list!"  another responded, "yeah, and if that happens he might lose his jolly spirit and then he wouldn't want to have a Christmas at all".

As you can see, we took our project very seriously!  We put aside our morning plans and set right to work on our new assignment. First we brainstormed some ideas as a class to get their creative juices flowing. They came up with SUCH original ideas. For example, one student suggested that Santa's new suit could have a robotic arm. That way he could maneuver his arm down the chimney to drop off the presents and save time by not having to go all the way down himself.  Another student suggested that he have a magic camera belt. When he pushes the button on his belt a spy camera appears in the children's rooms and a big screen projects in the living room. This way Santa can see if the children are nestled all snug in their beds or not.

A fun thing about this project was it brought out a lot of connections to movies. Last week during indoor recess we watched Prep and Landing. A lot of students made connections to that and took some of the high tech ideas the elves had and incorporated them in their suits. Other students made connections to the movie The Santa Claus and incorporated some of those ideas into their work.

Since Mrs. Claus didn't need our finished products until next week, we took our time creating our design yesterday. Next week we are going to finish up our work by writing her a letter explaining the different parts of our suits and telling her why she should pick each one.

These designs seriously turned out FABULOUSLY! Here is just one of the awesome examples:

For those that don't read "first grader", this new suit for Santa has:
-j et packs on the back (to help him fly)
- a command shirt (so he can be in contact with the North Pole at all times)
- a hypnotizing wand (to put kids and animals under a spell to get them back to sleep if they wake up)
- a noise meter (sucks in all the noise Santa makes so even if he is loud, no one can hear a thing)
- a naughty and nice list phone (so he can easily see who is on which list and it won't take up space)
- cookie pants (the pants pocket works as a cookie dispenser in case he gets hungry).

LOVE it! So creative! I can't wait to see the writing the kids do with these next week. This is one of my favorite projects of the year.

Holidays Around the World: Mexico

Yesterday we traveled to Mexico to learn about how Christmas is celebrated.  As usual, we began our day by looking at our map and marking our next location:

Then we hopped aboard the Holiday Express, turned off the lights, listened to Feliz Navidad (and everyone enjoyed singing along thanks to our fabulous music teacher at JSES!), and watched a slideshow with pictures of celebrations in Mexico.

Upon arrival, we got our passport stamped and were ready to go:

I purchased these great holidays around the world powerpoint presentations from TPT. We started out watching the one about Mexico and learned a lot about the different ways they celebrate. After we watched the powerpoint, we got to work creating our scrapbook page:

I just LOVE how these scrapbooks  are turning out! Such a great addition to this unit.

Next, we gathered around on the carpet and read The Legend of the Poinsettia. Finally we set to work creating our souvenir from this stop on our trip ... of course, a poinsettia. We used our handprint to create this one:

Next stop: Brazil!

Elf Antics: Day 8

Yesterday morning we were quite surprised where we found Dash upon walking into the room:

There were squeals of delight when everyone realized he had made his own swing high above our classroom. He is such a silly elf. I could hear students wondering aloud how he got up there, and hoping that he is careful so he doesn't fall down. Such sweet hearts those kids have!

Everyone was also delighted to see that Dash had not forgotten to remove a link from his countdown chain.

Only 12 more days!

We are really going to miss him when he has to go back to the North Pole next week to get ready to help Santa with Christmas.