Let it snow!

Okay, so it's about 60 degrees and raining in NJ...but one can wish! Elvis the Elf was very busy these last two days! On Thursday morning, we found him chilling with the characters from Frosty the Snowman and Rudolph the Red Nosed Reindeer.

We voted and recorded our data using Create a Graph.

After gym, we found him reading the definition of elf in the dictionary...upside down!

After lunch, we found him eating my Godiva chocolates! He didn't even throw away the wrapper.

Today we came into school and noticed that he used the "follow directions" stamp all over post-it notes, lounged in an empty tissue box, and changed "ALOHA" to "HA" on the magnetic dry erase board! Because we knew Elvis was watching, our behavior got even better!

We made these cool wreaths for our specials teachers and school V.I.P.s! First, we traced our hands on green construction paper, wrote our names, and cut them out. Then we taped them in a circle. My OCD is making me focus on the two hands that were taped a little bit high...oh well! Next, we added a second circle slightly higher than the first. Last, we added a bow.

We had a great holiday party! We did a mug exchange and drank crock pot hot chocolate with marshmallows in our pjs and slippers with stuffed animals (even third graders aren't too old for that!) 

My students gave me tons of gifts and couldn't wait for me to open them. I couldn't even see my desk, so I think I must have been on the nice list this year!

We ate all sorts of yummy fruits and veggies and decorated ornaments thanks to our great room parents.

No one complained about the healthy food! Most of what was left over was the cookies! Can you believe it?!

...and I had to kick my students out of the classroom! They didn't want to leave me or Elvis the Elf on the Shelf. They asked if they could come back next year to see him when they are in fourth grade. I love this class!

Elf on the Shelf

Our Elf on the Shelf arrived yesterday - wayyyy late! I showed my students the box with the book and elf inside, but left it on the table overnight. When we got to school, they found him fishing in our classroom fish tank!

I read the book out loud this morning and we watched the movie this afternoon. The kids say that he fell off to the side of the tank near the pencil sharpener during indoor recess, but when I brought them back to class after lunch, he was sitting back up there! We're going to use Create a Graph to vote on our favorite names tomorrow. My personal favorites are Poppy (my deceased grandfather) and Elvis (my childhood dog). I mean, come on! Elvis the Elf does have a nice ring to it. 

It was a busy day, and our behavior was much better yesterday and today, so students will have tomorrow to earn their ticket aboard The Polar Express on Friday (check the blog tomorrow to see what we'll be doing!) They worked so hard today and finished everything I had planned, even though I didn't start teaching them until about 10:30 because we had special and the second holiday concert of the week. I promised I'd post our Class Dojo results after days 2 and 3, so here they are: 

I am loving the fact that less students are coming in late, especially from lunch, and more students are writing in their reading logs. We're looking for 100% for each of those categories, plus completing homework and journal each day.

We also completed our Light the Night writing piece. Students had to choose a holiday that they celebrate (such as Diwali, Ramadaan, birthday, Christmas, Kwanzaa, Hanukkah, etc.) and write about it. It was interesting to see kids trying to write about holidays they either don't truly celebrate or trying to figure out the purpose of the lights to celebrate the holiday. That, to me, means we've kind of lost sight of the reasons to celebrate the season... Anyway, here's the bulletin board (I didn't have time to make it very pretty) and a couple of samples: