Learning Prefixes with Reading Olympians!

Hi, friends!

The azaleas are blooming in The South! These are in my front yard!

This past week, I had the opportunity to use First Grade Roots from The Reading Olympians Program. This program was developed by Teachers Krista Miller and Julie Kiss who wanted their students to truly understand the roots of the English language. Let me tell you, The kids and I loved it! It's easy to use and very effective!

Here's what we did:

First, I introduced the program with a Powerpoint presentation.

Just FYI: The first reaction to this slide was, "Look! It's Jesus!"
The second was, "He's walking on the water!"

I love First Grade!

After the inevitable questions of why Jesus was in his underwear and had his crown on a stick, we had a great discussion about how prefixes change the meaning of words. I used the program to introduce the prefix un-. The kiddos had a great time thinking of all the words they could change using the prefix un-.

The kiddos then put together their prefix puzzles.

Afterward, we worked on a page in our Prefix booklet.
We'll add a page with each prefix we cover.

I have to tell you, I really believe this program helps children understand how words work. My students truly know un- means not.

If we could teach young children basic prefixes and suffixes in Kindergarten and First Grade, think of how much easier this concept would be in the upper grades! I'm already making plans to include First Grade Roots in my lesson plans next year.

If you haven't had the opportunity to take a look at this program, click the button and you can see for yourself.