Word parade

A “beautiful,” a “blizzard” and a “disguise” were sighted inside Lake Superior Elementary School Tuesday, along with a slice of pizza, a velociraptor and a cosmonaut. Students were radiant, bubbly, patriotic, effervescent, quadrilateral, anonymous, mutated and a bit cattywampus during the school’s annual vocabulary parade.

Tyler Noble, 10, was dressed in camouflage to demonstrate his word.

“My whole family loves to go hunting,” said the fifth-grader, so it wasn’t hard to dig up a costume.

His classmate Thomas Hoyt wore Viking purple to illustrate his word, supporter. Second grader Colton Vagt, an expert at figuring elapsed time, wore a hat to illustrate an analog clock. Breydan Cuper, 7, had the whole world pinned to his clothes to illustrate his word, continents.

The vocabulary parade began about four years ago as an alternative to a Halloween parade, said Principal Mark Howard. It’s a chance for students to strut their vocabulary knowledge and get creative with their families.

“We’ve done this every grade,” said Hannah Furey, 11, who dressed in her Just for Kicks outfit to display the word flexible. “I like to see what everyone picks.” Last year, she said, her costume was helium.

The entire day stressed literacy. In addition to the parade, each of the children got to bring home four books. The PTA bought many new books and parents donated next-to-new books from home to provide tables full of titles for the children to choose from. After the parade through the cafeteria, the students added some of their nouns, adjectives and verbs to blanks in the school song as part of a Mad Libs event. The costumes came in all shapes, sizes

and colors.

“The creativity you’re going to see is amazing,” said Darcie Burbul, whose son Emjay, 10, wore a string of lights and held glowing tubes to illustrate his word, illuminate.

The best part of the parade, said second grader Hailie Neubauer, was “that you get to see people in cool costumes.”

The 8-year-old chose to wear a cloud costume.

“Because I like puffy clouds,” Hailie said. She remembers portraying gold in kindergarten.

Eight-year-old Leightan Kappes wore a box with items taped onto it to illustrate recycle.

“I recycle a lot and it just makes me feel great,” she said.

Evelyn Warring, 8, said her word, disguise, fit her personality.

“I’m usually really quiet,” she said. “If you’re a spy you’re really quiet.”

Burbul also chose to wear a disguise to the event, both to support her son and just for fun.

“I was helping throughout the day, giving out books,” she said. “It’s something fun, we get to be a kid ourselves again.” Her “disguise” outfit included a red wig, sunglasses and a hat.

Beth Panula, another parent, dressed in a fuzzy robe to demonstrate the word fatigue. She came in costume to support her son, Trenton, 8, also known as the slice of pizza.

“I love it,” she said. “It’s a lot of fun.”

Tags: news, youth, school, education