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Greek and Latin Roots Binders - Children as Authors of Their Learning
By Rebecca in Learning in Freedom
October 20, 2007

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 All we did for the first week of “school” was start on our Greek and Latin Roots binders. These are very easy and inexpensive to make.  All you need is a three ring binder, clear plastic page protectors, and a topic of interest!  For our roots binder we are using "English from the Roots Up" as our guide. (You can find a list of common Greek and Latin roots on the internet and use that for free, but "English from the Roots up" has a list of derivative words and even a lesson to go with each root.)

I printed out a little homemade sheet that has the name of the Greek or Latin root on the very top of the page and then a list of words that are derived from the root at the very bottom. I left a big space in the middle of the sheet for drawing and coloring. The child can then decide on how they want to illustrate the meaning of the root or the meaning of one of the derivatives.

For example, one of our roots this week was "tele" which means “far away”or “distant.”  An example of one of the words was "telephone."  Kelsey decided to draw a picture of a telephone to illustrate the meaning of the Greek
root “tele.”

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(image is of Kelsey's art work showing "telephone" and then a page from "English From the Roots Up")

Another sample page:

 

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For the root “photo” which means “light” Christian decided to draw a picture of a person taking a picture (photograph) of the Eiffel Tower. I will put these sheets in those clear plastic sheet protectors that have the three holes so that they can go into a three ring binder. Instant organization!


By the end of the year each child will have a HUGE binder full of his or her artwork which can serve as review of their Greek and Latin roots or which can go in our bookshelves with the other books.  This one-of-a-kind child-created book can give the child "ownership" over what they have learned and some autonomy in their education.

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It makes Kelsey proud to see “Kelsey’s Greek and Latin Roots” printed out on the spine of one of our books in our bookshelves. She decorated a sheet that we slipped into the front of the binder, so it looks like a real book.  I love children to author their own books.

We created our first Greek and Latin root binder years ago when Kelsey was Christian's age,6, and we still pull out the binder from time to time!  This is a project that we do even before the children can read.  Once the child can read the project changes from something that may only resemble an art project to more of a spelling lesson as many of the crazy things about our spelling rules are the fault of GREEK.  Here's your chance to learn those rules!

  
How could we tweak this "homemade" home publishing idea and make it work with my high schooler?  I am thinking that he can create a power point presentation to show each root, its meaning and derivatives, by using pictures and sound.  This would be part of his High School Language Arts (vocabulary) and Computer Science "credits." OR he could actually make a little book and try to have it published with one of the many self-publishing tools out there:  LULU.com or www.blurb.com.

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Not only have we created binders to document our learning of our Greek and Latin roots, but we have created binders for other subjects too. I like this idea of creating binders because then you can make your study of history, or whatever the subject may be, last for several years. It's an ongoing learning project that you can add to as you come across new or interesting information. It's also an awesome way to review and to relive some family learning moments as more than one person can add content to the binder! If you have to document learning, there it is!

Some examples of binders that we have made over the years are "Kelsey's Artwork" which included artwork from the time Kelsey was three years old. This is a binder that mom created to safely store my little artist’s progress.  From the people that she drew when she was three that resembled “m&ms” with legs to her very detailed and realistic drawings of her self-created still life.  When I couldn’t tell what she had drawn I would ask "We need to put a title on this page, what do you want to call it?" and then I would label it and date it and stick it in the binder! I only created an art binder with Kelsey because art is her bent.

Another binder that we made was a Science binder. It was really just a collection of Robert Krampf's weekly science experiments. You can find more information on these experiments here:  http://www.krampf.com/news.html This was back when for science my children did experiments INSTEAD of reading a text, working a worksheet, and taking a test.  Our binders also serve as an alternative to testing.   Power point presentations are a good alternative too!  If you can present the information such that you teach the material to someone else then you know that you know!

 

Matthan also created a "mind bender" binder where he kept his collection of brain teasers and riddles. I am keeping a binder with course details for my high schooler right now so that I can go back and create a transcript when he graduates.  I also have a binder that contains my favorite articles on education. 


Here are some samples from our family created World History binder:

 
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A printout from "The Story of the World" and then Matthan's name in hieroglyphs that we found on the internet at Virtual Egypt.  http://www.virtual-egypt.com/

A color page and a map from "The Story of the World" and then a page that we printed out with some additional information that we found on the internet and we later added to our binder:
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A history writing assignment and themed word search:
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Another example of a Greek and Latin root sheet:

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For "philia" which means "love" Kelsey drew a picture of a fox because she loves foxes. But, it led us on a wild goose chase as we searched the internet for a word meaning "lover of foxes" and even "fear of foxes" and couldn't find any so we created our own: lover of foxes = "vulpinphilia." LOL

I want to rely more on "note booking" or creating binders to document our family learning. It is not required in Texas for homeschool families to do so but looking back at our old binders is a great review, a sort of SHOW AND TELL to friends and family, it helps us document and organize our learning over the years, and most important it gives us ownership over our learning and also brings back great memories (for me.)

 

Which makes me think, WHY NOT SCRAP-BOOK OUR LEARNING JOURNEY???  You could create a similar BLOG to display your learning journey! We actually created a World History blog for our History Co-op one year. Families could add their children’s writings as well as additional information that they had found.  I even added some self created worksheets that the other families could download. It’s still out there on the web somewhere!