Katie's Crochet Goodies and Crafts: Teaching with Fancy Nancy

Those of you who have children in or teach the younger grades may be familiar with Fancy Nancy books. If not check out the Fancy Nancy Website here, there are games to play online and on apps.

These are adorable books and I love them so much. Nancy is a wonderful little gal with a very bold personality, she loves anything fancy and loves to use fancy words. I read a few of these to my class during student teaching (in 1st grade) and they loved them. These books could be used to teach vocabulary as well as word choice. Many of these books are targeted towards girls, but some are not so bad :)

Teaching Subjects

My friend Maura Carman and I made this list for an assignment in college.

Fancy Nancy Sees Stars - This book is a great teaching tool. It introduces a lot of the major features of the night’s sky, like the North Star and the Big Dipper.
Science: Introducing the constellations.
Math: Teaching about shapes.

The Dazzling Book Report - This book is all about Nancy doing her first book report in school about Sacajawea, and includes all of the important aspects of a book summary.

Writing: This could be used as an introduction to writing a biography or writing a book report.

History: This could also be used as a supplement in teaching about Native Americans, Sacajawea in particular.

At the Museum - This book is about Nancy’s class taking a trip to a museum and observing all of the paintings.

Art: This could be used as an introduction to the different types of paintings mentioned in the book, such as still life, masterpieces, landscapes, and portraits.

History: This could also be used as a supplement to a trip to a museum.

Fancy Nancy’s Favorite Fancy Words: From Accessories to Zany - This book is an ABC book that has fancy words for each letter. This is a great way to get children excited about learning new vocabulary words.

Language Arts: This could be used in the classroom to teach word choice, as there are many words that have a certain spice to them.

Writing: Another way this could be used is by teaching voice and vocabulary.

Bonjour, Butterfly - This book is all about Nancy’s love for butterflies and how she has to miss a beautiful butterfly party to attend her grandparents’ anniversary party.

Science: This could be used to teach about the different types of butterflies such as Monarch and Azure butterflies that are discussed in the book.

Science: This could also be used as a supplement to teaching the stages of a butterfly in a science lesson.

Heart to Heart - In this book Nancy males Valentines, receives a Valentine from a secret admirer, and tries to uncover who it is from.

Art: This could be used to introduce students to making their own Valentines.

Reading: This could also be used to practice segmenting the fancy words into syllables.

The 100^th Day of School - In this book Nancy needs to find 100 of a creative thing to bring to celebrate to 100^th day of school. During her search, Nancy writes a poem about her sister’s pet fish Goldy, who unfortunately passed away.

Math: This could be used to present the idea to have students bring in 100 items for the 100^th day of school.

Writing: This could be used to encourage students to help write a poem as a class.

Fancy Nancy: and the Boy from Paris - Robert is a new boy in Nancy’s class. He is from Paris. Nancy says “Bonjour” to Robert, and they start taking about France and the United States before Nancy learns he is from Paris, Texas.

Geography: Students could find Paris, France and Paris, Texas on a map.

Social Studies: Students could research famous landmarks like the Eiffel Tower.

Check out this link to Fancy Nancy Classroom Activities. You could also have a "fancy words" bulletin boards for descriptive words.

I found an adorable worksheet at a first grade blog to pick out fancy words in books and create a sentence using their favorite one, what a great way to use this concept while reading any book. Repetition is key, right?!

I had a couple Fancy Nancy books in my office but the rest are in my garage. Here is a peek into the books and I also have written down all of the vocabulary words used in each book.