It is the first day of December. We were talking about Solstice and Christmas, and other festivals. Sophia mention the Elf on the Shelf. Ms Finikin pulled out the one she bought from the Salvation Army years ago. Unfortunately, the head fell off.
Here are some of the stories we wrote about our rather traumatising experience.

When Ms Finikin moved the elf, its head fell off. Ms Finikin put the elf on the whiteboard and it was staring at Sophia.She got so scared.
Daniel G

When Ms Finikin shook the elf, accidentally the elf’s head fell off and I laughed because it’s funny and its head looks like a baby. Kian laughed and Daniel, Kelsey and Sophia were scared. Then Ms Coley came because she was worried.
Tanu

When Ms Finikin was explaining about Solstice, she wiggled the elf’s head. It fell off and Sophia screamed as loud as she could and Tanu laughed and Daniel was scared. Ms Finikin put the elf’s head back on and Miss Coley came and asked, “What was that noise?”
Kian

Hi, there is a scary elf. The elf will watch you as you sleep, he, he! The elf’s head came off and Miss Coley came in and said, “What are you doing to those kids?” I was very, very scared of the elf. Now it is scary. The doll is looking at me and I want to punch the doll. I screamed and Kelsey was, like, “Aaaaaaah!”
Sophia

The elf’s head fell off of its neck and then we laughed really hard and then Miss Coley came in and shouted at us and then we wrote about the elf and everybody kept on laughing and Sophia was scared.
Kelsey

When the children leave Hokowhitu and go to Palmerston North Intermediate Normal School, they have the opportunity to take part in First Voice. This is where students work with an adult helper to write in their first language. Mrs Drake sends us a copy each year and we really like reading what we can.

We took a page from someone who speaks our language (for some of us, this was our older sibling), and used this as a model to produce our own work. We crossed out their personal information and put ours in, put a sticker over their face and drew ourselves. Those of us who had literally defaced our siblings enjoyed taking this home to show them, knowing it would annoy them. We wrote a story in English then took it home to get help with translation. We did a good copy to share. Here are some of them.

We read What am I?

It was an interesting book and we enjoyed guessing the answer to the clues.
We wrote our own pages.