Compound Word Activities

This post contains affiliate links.  Now that I have Groundhog Day behind us, it is time to focus on the Superbowl!  Are you a Superbowl fan?  I do love the Superbowl..  another opportunity for good clean family fun… (well, at least most of the time).  Here is to hoping for clean commercials and a halftime show without a wardrobe malfunction.  Groundhog, Superbowl, football…. all of these compound words make me in the mood for a compound word activity!

As you likely know, a compound word is one word made up of two different words.  Sometimes the two words that are joined have nothing to do with the one word that is made when joined together.  Take for instance the compound word “butterfly.”  This compound word is made up of “butter” and “fly”.  I always found the song from the movie “Dumbo” fun for visually showing that two totally different words could be put together to make one longer word that has an entirely new meaning.  (Below is a clip of what I am talking about). Not all the words the crows say are compound words, but it is fun to see the puns they make with different compound words.

So…  to teach compound words, I say we put together a bunch of pictures, or objects and play a little game…  A scavenger hunt/charade game.  It is really important when teaching children that you appeal to many different senses.  With this activity we can appeal to a student’s sense of touch, and also get them moving… both good things.  When I played this game with my first grader, she had a fun time running around looking for things, or, acting out how she would play charades with the compound word parts.  Here are a few we came up with…can you guess what they are?  

Do you see that little baby on the bottom left?  She is mine.  🙂  My first grader came up with the compound word babydoll and brought me her sister, along with her doll.  Perfect.  Oh, and I almost forgot one other she brought me…our black Labrador, Touchdown!  (Now, if that doesn’t get you ready for the Superbowl, I don’t know what will…)

 

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