All About Compound Words

We had so much fun learning all about compound words and I hope your child enjoys these activities and projects as much as Savanna has!

One of the neat things I love about compound words (other than the fact that it's usually two totally random words that you put together to make another word! I mean, who would've thought to create the word butterfly?) is that you'll continue to teach them throughout your child's education. It's something they start learning in early elementary and just keep adding to their vocabulary as the years go by. So check out these activities that are great for elementary students 1st-5th grade...

Seek & Find


Simple, yet effective. Print a list of compound words, cut them between the words, separate and place them in random order, and have your child find the matches. Easy peasy. I have a List of Compound Words that you can use for this activity and for others listed.




Picture Flap Diagrams

Savanna loved this activity and it takes very little prep work. Take a sheet of white construction paper cut it in half (length-wise). Then fold in each side to the middle so you are left with 2 front flaps that open to reveal a center square. I did this with about 8 sheets of paper so she had 16 picture flap diagrams to do.
Using the compound words that you already printed and cut for the Seek & Find activity, have your child pick their favorite compound words. Savanna chose words like butterfly, cupcake, daylight, fireman, football, snowman, etc. She enjoyed picking which ones she wanted to do because we posted them on our bulletin board :) 

Have your child glue the first word on the left front flap (ie. "foot"), and the second word on the right front flap (ie. "ball"). Then have her illustrate each word. On the inside, have her illustrate the compound word. For example, Savanna drew a foot and a ball on the front two flaps shown here, and then football players on the inside center square shown.

Front of Picture Flap Diagram
for "football"

Inside of Picture Flap Diagram
for "football"

Her cupcake :)

 

Compound Word Mix-Up with Plastic Eggs

 

This is FUN! See my blog Egg-Citing Activities for greater details on how to make these eggs. In short, write the first word on the top half of the egg and the second word on the bottom half of the egg, separate them, mix them up, and have her find the matches. It's easy, fun, and a great way to practice those wonderful compound words :) 

 

 

Compound Clothes Pins

You can buy a bag of 100 clothes pins at Wal-Mart for about $2 and it will be well worth it (I will be posting another blog soon about the fun learning activities you can do with clothes pins). For now, I took 24 clothes pins to write 12 compound words on. I wrote the first part of each word on a pin with the opening facing the right and the second part of each word on another pin with the opening facing the left. Do this for all 12 words (or however many you choose to do). Set the first words in random order on the left side of a ruler and the second words in random order the right. Have your child match up the words and clip them to the ruler as shown below. This is VERY simple and a fun way to practice!



Here is a Compound Word Addition worksheet I created where your child can add two words together to create a new word. I left this in a word document form so you can change out the words and reuse this as often as you'd like.

We also try to notice whenever we hear a compound word in conversations and we make note of it. Savanna has really enjoyed this study and I hope your children do as well :)

Bye for now,
Kristina