Fancy Nancy's Favorite Words

Fancy Nancy books are very popular among my second graders. To enhance their vocabulary and writing I created a "Fancy Nancy" wall this year. On Fridays we add a new "Fancy Nancy" word to our bulletin board (okay it's a door, but wall space is very limited this year!!). I ask the students to give me words to replace tired and boring words like "said" and "good" and I write their correct responses on the board. When we are out of ideas I grab the Thesaurus and help them out. Later in the year when they have been taught how to use a Thesaurus I have students help me with this. I then have the students who gave me responses write the new fancy word on an index card strip (I cut 4x6 index cards to make my strips). I give a strip to students, who didn't give a response, to write the words that we came up with as a class using the Thesaurus. We usually have about 10-11 fancy words to replace each boring word. The pockets that I use came from the Dollar Tree! Excellent bargain :) I then stick 4 mounting tabs on the back of the pocket and stick it to the bulletin board..or door.. I discovered those mounting tabs at a Lakeshore store over the summer and I'll never use tape again. It's the middle of the year and nothing has fallen off my walls yet ::knock on wood:: you can also peel them off at anytime and it doesn't ruin the walls or the items you are taking down. Here is the Fancy Nancy poster I created. These are the word labels I printed on Avery address labels. You can also add as many more as you would like. I chose to use the most overused words. Now during writing activities the students will get up and pull out a "Fancy Nancy" word from the pocket and use it in their writing. This takes up a lot less space than creating a word wall and I like that the kids are part of the process; they write the words and can carry the strip back to their seat during writing.