It’s also one of the many words you’ll hear my students using this week. We’ve been ALL ABOUT Fancy Nancy lately. We have exhausted the C, A, and F parts of our CAFE board this year and we are now focusing on E – Expand Vocabulary. “I know, find, and use interesting words.”
Let’s just say, my kids have been word-crazy over the past few weeks – which makes me an elated teacher. (That’s a fancy word for happy.)
Every year, I host a Vocabulary Parade for my kids. You can read more about it {HERE}. I usually use content words for this parade. My students dress up to show the meaning of all of the academic content words we’ve focused on throughout the year: main idea, sum, length, addend, summary, conflict, etc. It’s always a blast and my kids really get into it!
This year, I decided to switch things up a bit. Since my students were having SO much fun with Fancy Nancy books, I decided to host a “Fancy Vocabulary Parade” instead. It seemed to fit with this little group of kiddos. They think they are glamorous and dapper every day of the week. (That’s fancy for beautiful and handsome.)
We started by reading LOTS of Fancy Nancy books. As we read each book, we added interesting words to our Fancy Words anchor chart.
We picked a word of the day and wrote it on Post-It notes. We stuck our Post-It note in our Take Home folder and had a simple, extra homework assignment each night: Use the fancy word of the day at home that night with our families.
Last week, my students told our principal that she looked exquisite at our assembly. They asked me if Mr. Wagers was dapper or hideous. I told them the chattiness I was hearing in the hallway was horrifying me. The more we talked and used the words, the more they understood the meaning. The more times I said the word of the day, the more I heard them using it correctly with one another.
When I told them we were going to have a Fancy Vocabulary Parade and they would get to dress up and create a costume to “show off” their fancy word, they were ecstatic. (I should mention I’m not just using that word to get my point across. They really WERE ecstatic. I had to make them tone down their squeals of excitement about getting to wear a costume in May instead of October.)
I assigned each child a fancy word. Many of the words were ones we had already talked about, put on our anchor chart, or used as a word of the day. We will be having our Fancy Vocabulary Parade right before our last week of school. I thought about waiting until after the parade to share and show pictures, but I thought maybe some of you would want to host a Fancy Vocabulary Parade with your students as well! 🙂 So, I’m sharing this little Fancy Parade Pack with you in case you would like to use it as we count down the days until summer.
Just click the picture below to download it from Google Docs. This little freebie does not contain any activities. It just contains a letter to parents, list of fancy words you can assign to your students, and a couple of reminders you can send home before the big parade day. Rachelle Smith has a great Fancy Nancy activity pack in her shop that you can find here. We used some of her great ideas throughout our word study. I hope you enjoy! I’ll be sure to share pictures of our fancy costumes after we have our parade day. 🙂
I’m off to enjoy my weekly dose of “Dance Moms.” 🙂
Thank you for sharing! I really need to spice things up to keep my students motivated through the end of the year and this is an easy way to do just that!
I LOVE Dance Moms too! I can't believe how wonderful the girls are and how "involved" those mothers are : ).
Tina Parker Followingfirstgradeparker.blogspot.com
That afternoon my little guy jumped in the car and said "Mom, you are exquisite" with a HUGE grin on his face. It made my day. You are an amazing teacher and I'm always so impressed at the things he has learned!! 'R' has really enjoyed you this year…I know he'll miss you when he starts 2nd grade!
Julie you are so sweet! I just love "R." I am so very proud of him this year. He is such a bright, creative, and hilarious kid! I can always count on him to make me smile throughout the day. :). Have a great weekend!
This is such an awesome idea! I can't wait to use it next year. Would you mind if I had it translated so my Spanish speaking parents would understand and read it? I could send you the translation for your pack.
Omiword I love this idea!! Thanks for sharing!!
So precious!! Thank you!! 🙂
Thank you so much, what a wonderful idea! I absolutely LOVE Fancy Nancy. Thank you for your freebie! I definitely want to do this!!
Thanks!!
Melissa
Jungle Learners
So so so Fabulous! Can't wait to see the pics.
Thank you for sharing! I really need to spice things up to keep my students motivated through the end of the year and this is an easy way to do just that!
I LOVE Dance Moms too! I can't believe how wonderful the girls are and how "involved" those mothers are : ).
Tina Parker
Followingfirstgradeparker.blogspot.com
That afternoon my little guy jumped in the car and said "Mom, you are exquisite" with a HUGE grin on his face. It made my day.
You are an amazing teacher and I'm always so impressed at the things he has learned!!
'R' has really enjoyed you this year…I know he'll miss you when he starts 2nd grade!
Julie you are so sweet! I just love "R." I am so very proud of him this year. He is such a bright, creative, and hilarious kid! I can always count on him to make me smile throughout the day. :). Have a great weekend!
This is such an awesome idea! I can't wait to use it next year. Would you mind if I had it translated so my Spanish speaking parents would understand and read it? I could send you the translation for your pack.