Let's Talk Morphology {giveaway} (Teaching in Room 6)

This weekend, I am happy to be apart of a fun little resource swap that a few other intermediate bloggers and myself are taking part in (and if you look at the little picture to the right, you will see some of my most favorite bloggy friends are right here with me!) If you read along here on my blog, and then follow the links to the other blogs, there will be some opportunities for you to win some fabulous resources for your classroom. So sit back, relax, pull up a chair, and read to your heart's content.

Oh, the Common Core. So much to teach, so little time. If you have following this blog for some time now, you know how much I love things that "kill two birds with one stone." I am a fan of anything that makes my life as a teacher easier and more exciting.

Which is why when I saw that Kristen at Ladybug's Teacher Files has created these GENIUS morphology posters for parts of speech and transitions, I was on them like flies on honey. Seriously, the second I saw them, I knew I had to have them in my classroom (and I couldn't stop gushing to her about how genius I thought they were...she probably thinks I am a stalker over them or something ;) ) Anyway, when I was asked to be apart of this product swap, pairing up and sharing this fabulous resource with you all was a no-brainer. I already had the posters, so there was no swap even necessary!

So why am I so in love with these posters? They take the basic grammar that we all need to teach and combines them with word morphology, aka ROOT WORDS! Teaching the students how to break up, say, a preposition by the word parts is seriously the most genius thing I have never thought to do. Knowing that "Pre" means before, so a preposition usually comes before a noun, or that "Pos" means place so that a preposition tells where something is placed, is such a smart way to teach these tricky parts of speech! It really is helping my students make the connection to word parts and meaning (which is what I am trying to teach them anyway with the different roots we are learning.)

In my room, to help the students interact with these posters even more, I have set up a little section on my board with a blank piece of white paper that has been laminated. Each week, as we learn more root words (we do 4 a week...you can read about that here if you have time) I ask the students to look for words that contain the roots but fall under the various categories that we are learning in grammar. Can they find a noun with "bio" or "syn" or "sol"? How about a conjunction? Or an adverb?

During our daily word work, the students have the opportunity to share these words, their meanings, and their parts of speech. It really is making our whole word work block that much more focused and meaningful.

Since the file is a Power Point (aka EDITABLE) I have not only printed out the full sized posters, but I also printed them in the slideshow notetaking format. I used this to introduce the concept of prepositions to my students (a 5th grade CCSS standard) and made it a part of our grammar notebook. Now, Kristen has updated the file in the Transitions pack so that there is already a notetaking page made for you!

As for the Transition posters (and now notetaking pages!), I am using them with my Essay of the Month (that Kristen is coincidentally talking about on her blog) They are really helping my students to work on smoother transitions between paragraphs....and I am loving it. (and I wish I had pictures of those....I forgot to take some. Trust me, they are awesome!)

You can get the Parts of Speech file here.
The Transitions file can be found here.

Now, to help with your exercise for the day, here's what you need to know about our hike and giveaway!
Hiking Tips -Start anywhere along the trail!
-Along the way, stop by each blog and read about the resources swapped between bloggers.

-Enter to win the resource that is featured at each blog in the raffle below (the same raffle is at each blog, so you can just add to your entries as you go!). While you are at each blog, if you’re not a blog follower already, sign on to follow! (You can earn bonus entries for following all blogs once you unlock the additional entries.)

-The raffle is open until midnight on January 31, so feel free to take a break from your hike, rest up, and finish it later!
One winner will receive the entire set of resources being featured by all 14 collaborating bloggers AND a $25 TpT gift certificate!

Here’s the list of blogs to "hike" to: Swap Stop A