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 Fourth grader Georgia Grady as “mishap.”
Photo by Amy Kremer
Miss
Alaineus is the story of a "vocabulary disaster" in which the main
character, Sage, misses school because of a cold. When she returns to
school, she misspells the word "miscellaneous" in her school's
vocabulary parade. Sage redeems herself in an imaginative leap. She
finds gold in her mistake when wears a cape covered with 100
miscellaneous items and becomes (at least for the day) "Miss Alaineus,
Queen of all Miscellaneous Things."
Imagination was omnipresent at Bishop when all found gold through
exposure to many new words. Students sat with their grade-level
teachers waiting for Mr. Carme, sporting his word, "casual," to usher
them up to the microphone to introduce them and express their word.
Children and teachers beamed while hearing their peers pronounce a
plethora of words with panache. The parade was colorful and expanded
word knowledge of all.
Become a word? The parade included many physicians, pediatricians,
batteries and switches. There were canines, felines, waffles,
quarterbacks and meteorologists as well as many concept words portrayed
by teachers modeling their passion for words. Superintendent Nate
Levenson and I were challenged to select six winners from the marvelous
multitude of children depicting words.
Judging the event was difficult! We saw walking waffles, twins and
triplets (portraying themselves!) and teams of students as batteries
and electrodes, litters of puppies, walking breakfasts, and an
incredible array of children as professionals, including pediatricians,
meteorologists, football players and firefighters.
The winners were chosen on the basis of their ability to use
creativity as they portrayed their word as well as their ability to
advance vocabulary knowledge for their school. Winners chose both nouns
and adjectives, with words from realms of literature, science, and
psychology. Each winner received a gift certificate from the Barnes
& Noble bookstore in Burlington.
The recipients were:
-- "Mythical" by Lyndsey Smith and Julia Blass, grade five. This team
sported a large beast's head. Megan McKenna, grade four, was able to
simultaneously wear and flee from a village, depicting "agoraphobia"
fear of the marketplace.
-- Irina Mara, grade three, floated to the microphone wearing
diaphanous pieces of fabric, which gave her a fairylike quality; her
word was lovely gossamer.
-- "Fruitless" was cleverly
depicted by Joey Noonan, grade one, as was "bouquet" by Annie
Schoonmaker, grade one. Finally, "magma" by Kindergarten student Jack
Henehan, was illustrated through his fiery, dripping prop.
Everyone at Bishop's first Vocabulary Parade "found gold" when they
learned new words through seeing them come to life in the creative
costumes of friends and teachers. We can't wait 'til next year!
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