Root Words!

When I was in high school, I took a class to become a Certified Nursing Assistant.  I had to take a medical terminology course as well as learn many different words and abbreviations in my main class.  Ever since then, I have always been fascinated with learning about the meanings of different root words.  I really think that it is important to know as many as possible because then you can understand a general meaning of different words that you may not have encountered in the past based on their breakdown of roots.

As I teach new vocabulary words to my students in science, I try to go over the different root words so that they can understand a deeper meaning instead of just regurgitating a textbook definition back to me.

Three years ago, I worked in a very small school (there were only ~35 kids K-12!!).  Throughout the day, my largest class size was 6 and my smallest was 2.  I had about 15 students overall.  I had decided that I would make a book for them that incorporated many of the things that we learned and several that we did not cover, but that they could use as a reference.  One of the key portions of the book was a section on root words.

I have worked hard to make a list of over 400 root words, their meanings, examples, and sentences.   It is over 30 pages of information!  I have posted it on Teachers Pay Teachers and I hope that other people can find it useful.  It is really geared toward science, so I think that it would be helpful in any science classroom, as a student in high school or even college, or just any individual that would like to increase their vocabulary.

So, please go take a look and let me know what you think!  It is titled Comprehensive Root Word List!

Bill Nye the Science Guy

I am a huge Bill Nye fan!  I enjoyed watching the videos when I was younger and I have always enjoyed showing them to my current students.  The videos are short enough that they can be used quickly during any class to help reinforce or to introduce a new concept.

I have all 100 episodes of the Bill Nye the Science Guy series as well as the episodes of Eyes of Nye.

I already create and use handouts with my own students and thought that it would be nice to share those with others.  I intend to create handouts that any teacher can use to accompany the videos.  I am going to start small by including a worksheet, answer key, and an activity for each video.  I then plan on creating a more comprehensive set for each video that can correlate to the Next Generation Science Standards.

I will be using the Teachers Pay Teachers to upload my materials.  Please take a moment to visit my store Every Little Piece to see the different products that I have listed!  I have already created and uploaded my first set of handouts that is for the episode Flight.

For more information:
Bill Nye
Purchase Bill Nye videos