You’ve probably heard of the wildly popular Elf on the Shelf. Our friend Ollena Jackson (Virginia Cooperative Extension) came up with a healthy version of this for the classroom:
In some of my other classrooms I’ve loaned the teachers an OWGal or OWGuy to act kind of like the Elf on the Shelf; you know, the OWG on the Shelf 😉 Every night he emails Santa and lets him know if the kids in that classroom ate healthy snacks, lunches, were helpful and nice students, etc. I send an email from a gmail account I set up that says it’s from Santa. The teacher pulls it up every morning and lets the kids read it as they are coming in and getting settled in for the day. This has been great fun and the kids are loving it! The email always has a healthy message to share and a holiday tip. I’m glad they just have two weeks left as I’m running out of clever and fun holiday health facts! My teachers have been wonderful with this, too. They have been moving OWGuy around the classroom at different times of the day when they kids are out of the room. Even the principal and janitorial staff have been helping.
