As the holiday season approaches, take this opportunity to do some word study of those delectably complex words that only escape our mouths a few times per year! Words like: Thanksgiving, Pilgrim, cornucopia, bountiful, Christmas, holiday, reindeer, yuletide, etc. We say these words, but most of us have no knowledge of their morphology (a word's meaningful parts) or etymology (a word's history).
Let's be thankful for Google! Take some time to explore the meanings of these words with your children this year, and create Word Sums by breaking these unique words into their meaningful chunks (prefixes, base words, and suffixes). Word Sums are a great way to get your children thinking about word meaning and spelling from a morphological perspective. See the image below for a word sum example, using the word: THANKSGIVING.
~ Moira
