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

Egg-citing Activities for PK - 5th Grade

I am so egg-cited to share these quick, easy, and inexpensive activities with you using... you guessed it... plastic eggs! I saw an idea on Pinterest (thanks Pinterst!) and I just rolled with it :) And what a great time of year to try these ideas, as there is ample supply of plastic eggs in stores right now! Here is what we are using our plastic eggs for:

Letter Matching (Pk & K)

1) You will need 26 plastic eggs with the connector cut off each egg (so you can pull them apart and mix them up) and a gallon size Ziploc bag.
2) Using a permanent marker, write an uppercase letter on the top half of the egg and its corresponding lower case letter on the bottom half of the egg.
3) Disconnect the eggs and mix them up using a Ziploc bag (this will be your storage for the eggs as well).
4) Dump out the eggs and have your child match up the uppercase letters with their corresponding lowercase letters by putting the eggs back together.

Twist on Phonics (K & 1st)

Each egg should be able to
twist freely to each letter,
creating a new phonics word

1) You will need several plastic eggs with the connector cut off each egg (so you can twist them freely while still keeping the egg closed) and a gallon size Ziploc bag.
2) Using a permanent marker, write the ending phonic sound on the top half of the egg. For example, you could make an egg for each of the following sounds: an, at, it, ig, et, en, ox, op, ug, ut.
3) On the bottom half of the egg, write single letters or double letters to spell a word corresponding to your phonic sound. For example, for the "an" sound you could write letters m, p, f, and c. This would give you the words man, pan, fan, and can on this egg.
4) Give you child an egg and let him twist the egg to create new words and have fun while learning phonics. You can do this as a free activity using all the eggs, or you can use specific eggs during specific studies, ie. ig and it eggs on short i day.
5) This can also be a good review for 1st graders to just practice speed reading without having to sound out the letters.



Compound Word Mix-Up (2nd - 5th)

1) You will need several plastic eggs with the connector cut off each egg (so you can pull them apart and mix them up) and a gallon size Ziploc bag.
2) Using a permanent marker, write the first word of the compound word on the top half of the egg. Then write the second word of the compound word on the bottom half of the egg. For example, you might write "pea" on the top and "nut" on the bottom, creating the word "peanut" on the egg.
3) You can make as many or as little eggs as you'd like. The neat thing about this activity is kids are learning new compound words all the way through 12th grade so this is something you can do for several years. I put 2nd-5th grade because I assume older children may not find this as amusing as younger ones. (Note: I will be posting another blog all about compound words for 2nd grade which will include a large word list. Keep an eye out for it!)
4) Disconnect the eggs and mix them up using a Ziploc bag (this will be your storage for the eggs as well).
5) Dump out the eggs and have your child match up first word with its corresponding second word to create compound words and putting the eggs back together.

Other uses for plastic eggs (I am planning to do these but didn't get to it last night):

• Capitals Game (2nd): Top half of the egg has the state capital (Lincoln), bottom half has the state (Nebraska).
• Multiplication Mix-up (2nd-5th): Top half of the egg has the problem (3x5), bottom half of the egg has the solution (15).
• Addition/Subtraction Matching (K-2nd): Top half of the egg has the problem (10-8), bottom half of the egg has the solution (2).
• Twist on Blends (1st & 2nd): Bottom half of the egg has the blend (TH), top half of the egg has several endings (ink, at, is).
• Twist on Long Vowel Practice (1st & 2nd): Top half of the egg has a long vowel ending (ike), bottom half of the egg has several beginning letters (b, h, str, l).
• Twist on Rhyming (PK-1st): Top half of the egg has an ending sound (ook), bottom half of the egg has several beginning letters (b, l, h, sh).

And don't forget you can use any of these egg ideas to have egg hunts as an added bonus to your lessons!

There's just so many neat ways to use plastic eggs in your classroom and the great news is they are cheap!! I bought 100 eggs for about $5 at Wal-Mart. I'm planning to go back after Easter and stock up on some more (they do break easily but are also easy to replace)!

Have fun with it!
Bye for now,
Kristina