Affixes, Affixes Everywhere!

This nine weeks, Mrs. Johnson's class has spent a great deal of time on affixes. Mrs. Johnson actually told us, "If we don't know anything else this term, we should ALL know affixes!" Of course, we know much more than just affixes! I think she just said that for the dramatic effect.

This week, we divided the affixes into two days. On Tuesday, we focused on prefixes. A prefix is a group of letters added to the beginning of a root word. Before the lesson, Mrs. Johnson gave each student a card. Some had prefixes on them, and some had root words on them. She gave us a few minutes to walk around the room and find a partner who had a match for our word part. Obviously, each partner group had to have one prefix and one root word to make a word.

Everyone put word parts side by side until they found the correct match.

Charles and Sabbion found their match!

After this quick activity to get our attention, Mrs. Johnson reviewed the many prefixes and their meanings. She told us how useful it is to determine meanings of unknown words when we know the meanings of their prefixes. For example, trans- means "across" or "change." So, transform means to change form. After the review, each group was assigned a prefix. Mrs. Johnson gave us circle maps. We added words, with the given prefix, to our circle map. Then, we wrote the meaning of our words based on the meaning of the prefix and root word. We did very well with this activity! And, if we got stuck, she allowed us to use a dictionary to come up with more words.

Jendaya and Sharnecia came up with words using the prefix, anti-. Anti- means "against."

De'Eric, Sherrina, and Arrion found meanings for words with the prefix, dis-. Dis- means "not, opposite, or reverse."

This group of boys came up with words and meanings for words with the un- prefix. Un- means "not."

Re- is a prefix we learned last year. This group came up with so many words that they ran out! They used a dictionary to find even more!

Mis- means "wrongly or badly."

D'Aubriney worked hard on her group's circle map.

Jordan had an idea for a word!

Wednesday, we focused on suffixes. A suffix is a group of letters that is added to the end of a root word. We did the same introductory activity. We each had word parts...some with suffixes, some with root words. We walked around to find our match.

Are you my match?

Mrs. Johnson and Nadia were a match!

After making sure everyone was matched correctly, Mrs. Johnson reviewed the suffixes briefly. She reminded us of their meanings as well. Next, Mrs. Johnson created a chart with a few suffixes listed. We came up with words for each suffix. As we added them to the chart, the class discussed the meaning of the word based on the suffix. We added the meanings too.

Kenyada added "meanness" to our chart because it uses the suffix -ness.

I think we are ready! Affixes, watch out! We've got your number!