Word work can be a little mundane – so it’s always helpful to spice things up with centers, hands on activities or a craft. Here are 5 ways to teach or reinforce compound words.
Bring out the legos or unifex cubes. I know I have a TON of legos from when my son was little. I’ve kept them in a huge, Home Depot type bin in our garage for our grand kids someday so every so often I take some to use in a center for an activity to reinforce an other wise boring skill. Legos to the rescue with compound words. Kids LOVE manipulating blocks or legos so when you bring these out you will automatically see the smiles. It’s always a hands on, fun day when you can reinforce compound words with legos. You can either write them on random colored blocks or write part of the word on one color and part on another color so it stands out more.
Bottle caps are also fun for your students to manipulate. If you think they need some scaffolding write the first part of the word in one color and the second part of the word in a different color. To make it more challenging write them all with a black sharpie. They will have fun building words and will notice that some will work for multiple words. For instance – firefly and butterfly. Just another way to have some hands on activities to reinforce this skill.
Turn the skill into a craftivity when you can. I get it – it’s not always appropriate or you don’t always want to waste paper but occasionally it’s fun and the kids will love it. This pineapple craftivity was a huge HIT in my classroom this past week. They wrote a compound word on each of the hanging rings and drew a picture to match.
Use plastic eggs….it doesn’t have to be close to Easter or Spring time to use these my friends. Pull them out and write the compound words on them and put them in a bucket all mixed up so they have to find them and put them together. Then have them write what they put together on their white boards. No copying and very low prep.
Create a class paper chain or individual ones that they can take home. If you choose the class paper chain you can hang it up as a display and a reference for them to look at almost like an anchor chart.
I hope these ideas help you teach compound words in a more engaging and memorable way for your students. If you are interested in the pineapple craftivity you can grab it here: ( click photo )
This pack also includes a fun dice game that your students will love as well.
Happy teaching!
xo,
