Greek and Latin Roots Binders

All we did this week for “school” was start on our Greek and Latin Roots binders. We are using "English from the Roots Up" as our guide. (You can find a list of common Greek and Latin roots on the internet and use that for free, but "English from the Roots up" has a list of derivative words and even a lesson to go with each root).

I printed out a little homemade sheet that has the name of the Greek or Latin root on the very top of the page and then a list of words that are derived from the root at the very bottom. I left a big space in the middle of the sheet for drawing and coloring. The child can then decide on how they want to illustrate the meaning of the root or the meaning of one of the derivatives.

For example, one of our roots this week was "tele" which means far away or distant. An example of one of the words was "telephone." Kelsey decided to draw a picture of a telephone to illustrate the meaning of the Greek
root “tele.”


(image is of Kelsey's art work showing "telephone" and then a page from "English From the Roots Up")

For the root “photo” which means “light” Christian decided to draw a picture of a person taking a picture (photograph) of the Eiffel Tower. I will put these sheets in those clear plastic sheet protectors that have the three holes so that they can go into a three ring binder. Instant organization!



By the end of the year each child will have a HUGE binder full of his or her artwork which can serve as review of their Greek and Latin roots or which can go in our book shelves with the other books.



I think it’s cool to see “Kelsey’s Greek and Latin Roots” printed out on the spine of one of our books in our book shelves. She decorated a sheet that we slipped into the front of the binder, too.

We did this years ago when Kelsey was Christian's age and we still pull out the binder from time to time!

How could we tweak this and make it work with my high schooler? I am thinking that he can create a power point presentation to show each root, its meaning and derivatives by using pictures and sound. This would be part of his High School Language Arts (vocabulary) and Computer Science "credits." OR he could actually make a little book and try to have it published with one of the many self-publishing tools out there......



We created binders for other subjects too. I like this idea of creating binders because then you can make your study of history (or whatever the subject may be) last for several years. It's an ongoing learning project that you can ad to it as you come across information. Not only that but it's also an awesome way to review! And if you have to document learning, there it is!

Some examples of binders that we have made over the years are "Kelsey's Artwork" which included artwork from the time Kelsey was three years old. I would ask "What is this" and then label it and date it and stick it in the binder! I only did this with Kelsey because art is her bent. Another binder that we made was a Science binder. It was really just a collection of Robert Krampt's (how do you spell that) science experiments. Matthan created a "mind bender" binder where he kept his collection of brain teasers and riddles. I am keeping a binder with course details for my high schooler.....

Here are some samples from our World History binder:

A print out from "The Story of the World" and then Matthan's name in hieroglyphs that we found on the internet at virtual egypt, I think.



A writing project and a word search:



A color page and a map from "The Story of the World" and then a page that we printed out with some information that we found on the internet to ad to our binder:



Another root sheet. For "philia" which means "love" Kelsey drew a picture of a fox because she loves foxes. But, it led us on a wild goose chase as we searched the internet for a word meaning "lover of foxes" and even "fear of foxes" and couldn't find any so we created our own: lover of foxes = "vulpinphilia." LOL



Anyway, I want to get back to "note booking" or keeping binders to document our learning. Not that it is required in Texas to do so but because looking back at our old binders is a great review, a sort of SHOW AND TELL to friends and family, it tricks people in to thinking that you are organized, and also brings back great memories (for me.) Which makes me think, WHY NOT SCRAP-BOOK OUR LEARNING JOURNEY??? Because I'm lazy. I guess you could BLOG your learning journey! Imagine a WORLD HISTORY blog! We actually created one for our History Co-op one year. Where you link to images or information about what you are learning........