Day 2 ~ Welcoming Your Christmas Elf

Welcoming any new member of the family is a joyous occasion.  Celebrating the arrival of your new elf should be just the same! Our Elf makes its grand entrance in the form of a surprise “Elfy Breakfast” 

 On the morning of the 25th November the children awake to find a cheeky little Elf has prepared them a Christmas themed Breakfast!  The Elf also presents the children with a “Letter of Introduction” from the Jolly man himself, Santa!!!

So how will YOU welcome the Elf?

Here are some ideas for your family or class.

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An “Elfy Breakfast”:  Christmas Themed food complete with hot chocolate with snowballs (marshmallows) Snowman shaped pancakes with bacon scarves, and elfberry muffins (raspberry muffins)  If breakfast is too hard you could always have an “Elfy” afternoon tea or dinner! I originally saw this brilliant idea on “Little Pumpkin Grace” this clever mummy has spared no detail!

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Elf Door Drama:  Eye spy with my little eye an ‘elfy ‘body stuck in the front door holding onto a set of keys!  This cheeky little elf tried very hard to come through the front door but his key wouldn’t work!  Lucky Santa sent a key for him to use next time! (Santa keys are readily available form most department stores.  We bought this one from Big W) 

Riding in on a Reindeer: Some little powdery tracks on the floor lead to an Elf riding a reindeer!  How else would elves travel but by First Class reindeer flight!  The Elf may even have their very own Reindeer ticket!  Reindeer Christmas decorations are a perfect size for an elf to sit on and tracks can be made with a little cocoa or baby powder on the floor.

However your Elf make it’s grand entrance they will need a letter to introduce themselves, so here it is! 

Letter of Introduction from Santa

Blank Santa Letter Template

  • Use the “My Christmas Elf” letter and ask the students or children what it is that you have (a letter)
  • How did they know it was a letter and not an email or a postcard or a poster or a recipe?
  • What is in a letter?
  • Using the blank letter template as a class (for younger students) or individually (for older students) write a thankyou letter back to Santa!  Fell free to enlarge the Blank template to A3 size for easier use with a whole class.
  • If you are a parent ask your child what they would like to say to Santa!  Be the Scribe and write down what they say!  This is a great one to file away with other special Christmas memories, to look back on in years to come!
  • For Older Students; Discuss what they will need to write (Address at the top, Dear Santa, Letter Body, Closing) Encourage them to write as much on their own as possible, sounding out words and using sight words.  You will be amazed at how much they can do!
Other possibilities: 
  • Take your Elf on a tour of the house.
  • Introduce the Elf to the other “dolls” in the house.
  • Take a photo of the Elf on his first night in his new home!
These are all great opportunities to encourage social skills, oral language and develop creativity and imagination!

Their are numerous links to  be made to The Australian Curriculum for this activity. Some possibilities are;   

English – Language – Text Structure and Organisation (By reading, identifying and discussing the features of a letter)
Foundation – Understand that texts can take many forms, can be very short (for example an exit sign) or quite long (for example an information book or a film) and that stories and informative texts have different purposes(ACELA1430)
 
 
English – Literacy – Creating Texts (By writing a letter)
Year 1 – Create short imaginative and informative texts  that show emerging use of appropriate text structure, sentence-level grammar,  word choice, spelling, punctuation and appropriate multimodal elements, for example illustrations and diagrams.(ACELY1661) 
 
 
English – Language – Text Structure and Organisation (By reading, identifying and discussing the features of a letter)
Year 2 – Understand that different types of texts have identifiable text structures and  language features that help the text serve its purpose (ACELA1463)
 
So get writing and welcome a new piece of wonder and magic into your lives!