SPARKLES HAS ARRIVED!

On Monday I introduced my kiddos to "Elf On A Shelf." All I can say is if you don't have an Elf on the Shelf, run to your nearest Target and get one! The best $30 bucks I ever spent. Ok, plus the $10 for the DVD so I guess the best $40 bucks I ever spent on my classroom. Wonder if I could submit my receipt to the district office for "supplemental curriculum material"? Ummm.. probably not!

I started out the morning as usual but "delivered" a package from the North Pole to the office before the kiddos arrived. Then after school had started, I asked our office manager if she could page my room and say over the speaker that I had a "special" delivery that needed to be picked up right away and it was from the North Pole. I wish I had my camera on and taken a picture of my little guys faces. They were SO EXCITED. We all marched down to the office to pick up our package and they could hardly wait to get back to our room so we could open it. I have never had a straighter line or a quicker one at that! We sat at the table and opened our letter from Santa instructing us what to do. I read the story and my students could hardly contain themselves. They were already trying to shout out names (4 of my students are speech and language delayed but the were certainly throwing out sounds!) I loved it. We narrowed our list down to 4 names. One of my non-language kiddos actually said "apple" clear as day. I felt like a very proud momma! We had Sparrow, Sparkles and Jax to choose from. After voting, our little magical elf was named Sparkles. And what a character this little guy is. I think we are going to be cleaning up a lot of messes!!! :-)

After he was named and placed on my desk (he wasn't even there for 10 seconds, he was already touched. OH MY GOSH! You would have thought the roof fell in. Two of my students faces turned so ashen I thought they were going to pass out. They yelled and I mean "yelled" at Owen for touching him. Telling him he will be "freezin" (I think they meant Frozen) and will not be able to tell Santa what they want. Okay... here is where Mrs. H comes to the rescue.... I told them that first of all, let's have a quiet voice and to please tell Owen you are sorry for yelling at him (only I can do that).. just kidding, and we might be okay because we need to have our "North Pole Breakfast" first to celebrate Sparkles coming to our class. I told them that we will leave Sparkles a snowball (frosted doughnut) and if he ate it before we got back from recess then we will know he is not "freezin" (frozen)! Whew... quick thinking payed off on that one!

So here are just a few pictures of our little Sparkles "hanging" on the pocket chart and sitting in our tree, which he will have lights wrapped around him tomorrow! He is going to be quite the little trouble maker I think! I am truly having so much fun with this and the kids have talked to him everyday already. And I mean "talk" to him. They are sitting in front of him telling him what they "NEED" for Christmas. I love it. Even my non-speakers are sitting there uttering sounds. I think I will come up with a new visitor every month just to hear my guys "talk"!