Santa's Beard Countdown and Elf on a Classroom Shelf

Happy winter break!!! (I’m hoping most of you are on break by now!) My last day was Wednesday, so I’ve been enjoying some serious relaxation time!! The busyness of the holiday season has cause me to slack on my blog, so without further ado, here’s what we’ve been up to lately!

At the beginning of December, we made Santa’s Beard Countdowns! These were a huge hit with my students!



Click on the image below to snag the freebie for your class next year!



I used a combination of fabulous resources from bloggers for my Holidays Around the World Unit. The majority of goodies came from Halle and Jenna’s {Across the Hall in 2nd Grade} wonderful Christmas {And Other Holidays Too!} Around the World Pack. Here are some of my students with their suitcases, ready to board Santa Express Airlines!



Besides staying busy with our Holiday Around the World activities, we also worked hard on our Elfie Antics: A Classroom Elf Adeventure Journals!



(Yes, out of all of the cute Elfy names in the world, my lovelies voted on the name Tommy!)





The Elf journals proved to be a fantastic motivator to keep my kids writing right up until break! I used the journals as a part of my students’ morning work routines. Each day, they came in and discovered what Tommy did overnight and then wrote about his adventures in their journals! The journals turned out darling and will be a great keepsake! Here are some of Tommy’s antics:



Tommy spelled his name with our word building materials the day after we named him!



Taking a nap with a Care Bear on top of a tissue box… we must have worn him out the day before!



Giving a lesson to some of his tiny friends! He also ate the candy cane a student had left for him!



Oh dear! He made himself a swing and is hanging from the ceiling fan!



We found him sitting on top of the SmartBoard and noticed that he put red polka dots on our lunch count!



Ready to check out all of the kids who move to Above and Beyond for the day!



Ahhh!! He took a picture of himself and turned it into my desktop background!

If you’re looking for something to spice up your Elf on a Shelf Adventures for next year, check out my Elfie Antics: A Classroom Elf Adventure pack on TPT!




My class party was on Wednesday. We usually have the actual party in the morning and then spend the time after lunch watching The Polar Express. The kids are allowed to wear their pajamas to school, which is always the biggest hit of the day! I usually run my classroom parties in stations—we have four stations and rotate every 15 minutes. Here’s what we did:

1) Classic snowman handprint ornaments! I adore these!!!





2) Reindeer food! {2 scoops of oats and a sprinkle of glitter!}



3) Pin the nose on the snowman!



4) Cookie decorating!



(Priceless!)

Happy holidays!!!