Three students modeling the latest in letter A walked down the center of Meadow Pond’s cafeteria—a runway lined with family members. All smiles, they posed for a moment, then circled the room. The applause didn’t stop … for all 26 letters!
The first-ever ABC Fashion Show, presented by Meadow Pond Elementary School’s kindergarten team, was an exuberant celebration of the young students’ alphabet exploration and reading readiness.
The kindergarteners have been focusing on the alphabet since September.
“As students learn how each letter sounds, and how to write it, we also focus on phonemic awareness skills, teaching them how to tap and blend consonant-vowel-consonant words and learning high frequency words,” said teacher Jackie Kovatch. “We celebrated all this important work in the ABC Fashion Show.”
Each student was assigned a letter and given a brown paper vest to bring home. The vests were transformed into one-of-a-kind tributes featuring the upper- and lower-case version of the letter, words which started with the letter, and drawings, stickers and cut-out pictures of those words. Some of the ABC models also carried accessories—U brought an umbrella, C wore a crown and R held roses.
Teachers mentored an attitude of fun for the young students. They brought choice items out of their closets and wore sight words such as “look” and “can.”
Music teacher Melissa Richardson rose to the role of emcee. With a russet wig, shiny tunic and more formal elocution that usual, she was barely recognizable.
“You changed your clothes, and you changed your voice,” said a kindergartener with glee when he recognized who it was!
“I’m your host today,” she began. “My name is Mimi Musiccini.” She announced each letter’s appearance on the runway with whimsical alliteration—Amazing and Adventurous A’s all the way to Zingy and Zippy Z’s—adding another layer of alphabet appreciation to the event.
After the fashion show, all students gathered on the stage to perform “The ABC Song.” An afterparty followed in kindergarten classrooms, complete with photo ops with family members to mark the memorable occasion.