Why Elf On A Shelf? Why Not?

After beginning my kindergarten career in August, I'm finally to a place where I feel that I can write about some of the things going on in my classroom (due to finally getting things under control...what an adjustment). Anyway, the blog kicks off at a great time, as we are heading back into the classroom tomorrow after Thanksgiving Break. A three-week sprint to Christmas Break is upon us, and with that, comes new fun things going on in the room. I'll be using Elf On A Shelf this month...moving our little guy here and there around the room. I thought long and hard about using the E.O.A.S., and I finally came to the conclusion that it creates way too many teaching opportunities NOT to use it. In attempt to boost the creative writing of my kiddos, I put together a sheet where they essentially create a comic strip, coming up with a fun way that The Elf (as he will be called until he is given his name tomorrow) arrived at his location in the room.

This can be found on TPT, here.

This gives them the chance to come up with some creative short stories, as well as the chance to publish them in a way that doesn't require them to write a bunch of sentences (since they can't at this point in the year). They also practice writing a sentence (capitalization, punctuation, word spacing, etc.) at the bottom of the page (something like "Gary is on the book shelf."). Obviously, this could be adjusted to be more difficult for older kids.

I'll add a picture of completed pages later, when the kids get going with it. We'll see if I need to adjust it, giving them one large frame to draw one large illustration, as opposed to a three-cell comic.

*UPDATE: Led off this morning with the Elf On A Shelf activity. Results were mixed, but  I saw several creative comics being drawn. I gave an example, which many students copied the first time, but many came up with something different. I feel that if they are thinking of a creative story, and attempting to organize it and communicate it, it's been a success.