20 Elf on the Shelf Classroom Ideas

There’s always a big question of if you should have an Elf on the Shelf in your classroom or not…and I always say yes!!  It such a magical time of the year and I love being apart of it!  However, sometimes it’s hard to come up with ideas for your Elf in the Shelf to do in the classroom.  Look no farther, because I have 20 Elf on the Shelf classroom ideas that you can implement immediately!

Now I completely understand if you are unable to because of the different backgrounds and traditions of your students!  There are other options like a Moose on the Loose!  It’s the same concept but with a stuffed moose and it has nothing to do with Christmas!  I have put together all of the different shenanigans that have happened in my classroom over the last several years to help you make the most of your elf or moose!

Now there are lots of “fancy” ways to do this but I always prefer the easy way!  I’ve wrapped it bulletin board paper and asked my principal to deliver to our classroom!  But I’ve also had it just show up in our classroom one morning with a letter from Santa.  I’m giving editable Elf Letters to anyone who signs up for my email list at the bottom of this post.

To be completely honest, I usually plan out some of the bigger elf shenanigans.  Which helps me figure out when I need to buy special items.  But most of the time, I just move the elf around the room and pose him/her in different ways!

All this took was a cheap bag of Dollar Tree bows!  Put one on every student’s desk and the rest goes around the room.

This one is always fun!  I place the Hershey Kisses in the freezer the night before.  Students usually come in to find the elf when they first arrive, but this day, the elf is nowhere to be found!  While the students are in special area, our elf arrives with a letter from Santa explaining that our elf was needed for a special mission and Santa is so sorry he didn’t get back in time so he sent a treat!  The kiddos freak out when they realize the candy is COLD!

This one is my personal favorite!! I buy the stick-on mustaches (I always find mine at Target during Halloween)  This always cracks me up how funny kids look with mustaches on!

This is usually what happens when I forget to move the elf!  #realtalk Put him/her on top of something and there’s your shenanigan for the day!!

These are always a hit with the kids!!  Sometimes I print them out and put them around the room.

Sometimes I change the background of our computers or Smartboard and sometimes, I just show the kids on my iPad! #morerealtalk

I usually give little things that I would give my students even if I wasn’t doing an elf!  Pencils…candy canes…needed school supplies…

This is another fun one!  Instead of Santa’s naughty or nice list, our elf leaves one.  The students go nuts when they realize I’m on the naughty side!! (My elf handwriting is my left hand…not bad, right?!)

There have been years, where we’ve had an incident of someone touching our elf.  It’s usually a pretty sad day, especially if it was an accident!  But Santa always comes through for us and writes us a letter to let us know that our elf just needs rest and a quiet classroom to recover!

I was extremely fortunate to work with an amazing team who all had elves too!  Our team got together after school one day and as you can see…our elves had a grand time!  We took the pictures and made it our screensavers for our Smartboard. Then timed it so that everyone would pop up at the same time! Then of course, when we heard the other classes going crazy…we knew our elves were BFFs!!

What kind of shenanigans does your elf get into?  I love hearing what other elves are up to!

Also…here are the letters from Santa and the Elf that you can edit for your classroom!