Elf Investigation:Case Closed

Ahh...the first Saturday of winter break. The only other day better than this one is the first Saturday of summer vacation! Now, I love my job, but the days leading up to these two breaks are enough to make a teacher reallllllly enjoy their time off. Can I get an amen?!

We actually had a lot of fun this week, but I think I tried to squeeze into too many things I found while blogstalking and Pinterest-ing. I've got all kind of ideas about how to better organize these ideas for next year which I will hopefully write down before I forget what I was thinking..

One thing I will definitely do again is this great game I found on Pinterest. The kids hold a paper plate over their head and follow oral directions to draw a Christmas scene. Then they earn points if their tree was on the floor and if the star was actually on the tree, etc. I think next year when I do this I'll have them use a certain color for each direction because it was little hard to tell what was what. I also let them do it a second time after they realized what they were supposed to accomplish. The drawings weren't much better the second time around, but they had fun and that was the whole point.

In elf-related news, CC has returned to the North Pole until next December. This morning, he rearranged the letters on our Boggle board to send the kids a secret message. It took them a few minutes, but they eventually got it. Can you see it?

There were actually lots of "Aww's" when they read the message. They were blowing kisses to him and saying their good-byes. It was very cute. Here's a little wrap-up of all the places CC ended up:

One of the best parts of the whole elf experience was the journaling from my Elf on a Shelf unit.  It took the place of morning work and they really got into it. Below is a slideshow with a picture of CC sightings and one of my student's journals. Enjoy!
11/2013 UPDATE: Sadly, I've been notified that materials directly related to Elf on a Shelf can not be sold on TpT. I'm working on an update that would allow me to repost this unit with no copyright conflicts before the holiday season. And even worse - Picnic, the service which held my slideshow below,  went out of business, taking my slideshow with it! :(

11/23/ update - the unit is back~ with a new name and new look. Check it out here and be sure to redownload if you had the original!

"Picnik Show"

Create a free slideshow with Picnik!

Edited 11/28/12 - My slideshow is just a black box because sadly, Picnik, which was hosting the slideshow went out of business taking my slideshow with it. Sadness. However, you can see lots of pix on my Pinterest Elf on the Shelf board HERE and I'll be adding new ones from out adventure this year!

For even more ideas, visit Mel's linky party!