Why Learn Greek and Latin Roots

Learning Greek and Latin Roots

Many words in the English language have Greek or Latin roots. When you start delving into STEM fields, that number only increases. If your students are interested in pursuing careers in a STEM field, knowledge of root words can only increase their understanding and fluency of terminology in the field. Those aren't the only benefits of studying root words, however.

Why Learn Greek and Latin Roots?

Even if you don't love language, there are so many reasons to get familiar with Greek and Latin root words. As students move into increasingly technical textbooks and fields of study, the terminology itself can feel overwhelming. When you are able recognize at least a portion of a new word, it helps to ease the mind a bit.

This is especially important for students choosing a STEM career path. Every STEM field has words with Greek and Latin roots.

Even the names of the fields themselves draw from these languages:

• biology: the study of life (Greek "bio")
• mathematics: learning, mental discipline (Greek "máthēma")
• science: from the Latin scire, "to know"
• engineering: from the Latin ingenium, "cleverness" and ingeniare, "to contrive, devise" (from Wikipedia)
• architecture: Greek, meaning "chief builder"
• astronomy: the study of stars, space  (Greek ástron, "star")

Greek and Latin Roots for Standardized Testing Preparation 

In order for students to get into college or graduate school, they will need to take standardized tests. Even though I'm not the biggest fan of standardized testing, it's still a requirement for applications of most major universities. Knowing Greek and Latin roots strengthens vocabulary and can be used to help decipher unfamiliar words in reading passages. Even if the precise meaning of the word is still a mystery, students can still make an educated guess on the meaning.

Introduce Greek and Latin Roots with a Collaborative Pennant Activity 

Have each student choose a root (or assign them) and have students doodle images that represent the root, or write words with the root on the pennant. Display the pennant so that students can refer to them. You can create your own or use the templates I have created.

Improve Retention by Playing Root Word Games

Greek and Latin Roots Pair Stare

I have created several root word games and a collaborative pennant activity so that root words can be put on display in your classroom. Try root words BINGO, root words pair stare, or both! Games are my favorite way to encourage my kids to learn - usually they are having so much fun they don't even realize they are actually learning something! Learn and use over 60 root words by getting the complete bundle here. You will get the pennant templates, printables to explore the root words, and two games each of pair stare and BINGO.

More Sources for Learning Root Words

Some websites I have found useful when learning about root words:

Membean
Wikipedia
Online Etymology Dictionary
Macroevolution

Online Games to learn roots:
It's Greek to Me game on Scholastic
Root word memory 
Various root word skills 

Pin these ideas for later:

 

Storm the Castle: Mini Weapons and More

It's been awhile since I linked up for Five for Friday! I am finally feeling much more like myself after surgery 5 weeks ago so I'm excited to link up this week with Doodle Bugs Teaching.

Come storm the castle with us! We have been project-based learning after being inspired by Keva's trebuchet project, which led me to find this great book by John Austin at our local library. Now my kids, with the help of their dad (since I am still unable to do much with my dominant arm/hand), have been building mini weapons of mass destruction! Most of the weapons in the picture are directly from the book, except for the Lego catapult and the cannon which I machined in college. All of the weapon building has inspired tons of fun creative play, as well as creating mini castles to knock down (made from TP tubes and index cards).

I can't believe it's June. It's a little hard for me to believe we are at the end of yet another year of homeschooling. We just kind of fell backwards into it, but it really does seem to make sense for our family. The kids want to keep homeschooling for another year, so next year I will be homeschooling a fourth and second grader for our fifth official year as homeschoolers. You'd think I'd know what I'm doing at this point, but really every day is different, not to mention I won't be doing the same "second grade" year with kid #2 as I did with kid #1. This is one of the perks and challenges of being a homeschooling parent. You get to come up with an individualized curriculum for each child. The drawback? You are the only one you can rely on to get it done.

I'm still not quite ready to call it done, and I still need to make the photo yearbook I've made every year so far, but we are definitely heading into our transition to the next year. We typically do more traditional schoolwork in the summer because we are actually home more instead of traveling to all of their homeschool classes! Both kids actually just started their new math courses, and I'm hoping they will power through them before September because it seems like there is never time to get to everything, especially with all the playing and extra classes.

Spring brought flowers in my strawberry garden! We are now harvesting strawberries daily, which has always been part of our homeschooling curriculum. The kids harvest, count, and weigh the strawberries, and then we track the harvest on a spreadsheet and graph. This year they will be learning some basics of using spreadsheets and how to make the graphs themselves. In the past I have always done it, but I am happy to pass the torch onto them. How many strawberries have we picked so far? 170 in the past week, about 1.5 kg. It's easier to talk about averages, ranges, metric and imperial conversions, etc. when it's in relation to something so sweet!

Another fun math activity we worked on this week was Sideways Arithmetic from Wayside School by Louis Sachar. I think kids who aren't very into math might find this book a frustrating or tiring. Even my brain was feeling a bit stretched by working through some of the problems with my third grader (or maybe it's my aging brain). These problems start with addition and then work into more challenging problems, replacing numbers 1:1 with letters and ending up with valid math problems. It's a book I hung onto from my own childhood because I loved it so much. It's better to read after reading other Wayside School stories, because you'll already know the characters, but be forewarned: this is not a relax-on-a-hammock type of book. You will need to engage your brain in these tough logic problems!

I have recently completed two new All About Me resources. I'm really excited about these, and I hope your inner geek loves them too! Math About Me will get you talking about various number systems, mathematical expressions, and breaking out your rulers and tape measures. There are six different options (because who doesn't love options) for all levels of math abilities. I have included "Maths About Me" pages as well for all my friends not in North America. I've been working on ideas for Science About Me for months, and finally had the chance to organize them and put the banners together. Get into genetic traits, body systems, weather, and more with this fun activity!

noun game, adjective game

I made a word game for each of the boys today: a pre-reading noun matching game for F, and an adjective game for H. We've played the noun game before but I couldn't find the cards I had made so I made a new sheet:

Feel free to print and add your own in the blank boxes.

This game was very well received! I stuck with mostly cvc words but if you can do more difficult words as well if you are beyond the beginning reading stages.

The game objects

Working out the words

 I made an adjective game for H for reading practice and to reinforce the concept of describing words.

I had him cut out the words, read them, and then find objects in the house that matched. Blank cards are to write in your own adjectives or to have your child come up with some on their own. Active, hands-on learning seems to work really well for my boys - they keep their bodies moving and have fun!

noun sorting

We have been talking about nouns for a few days and so I searched for some person, place, and thing printables to make a sorting game.

Two sets good for pre-readers are here and here; there are both pictures and words on the cards (I printed 4 sheets per page since there are so many pages).

Montessori for Everyone has a great printable with words only, excellent for those kids that have already started reading. They are also grouped so that the person, place, and thing all relate to each other (astronaut, outer space, space shuttle).

Print these out on card stock and let the sorting begin!