These Greek & Latin roots PowerPoint flash cards work like traditional flash cards except instead of using plain ol' text, these flash cards use interesting, colorful, funny images and animations to teach your students the meaning of Greek and Latin roots.

How does it work?

Write the ten Greek & Latin roots and their English meaning on the board.

Tell students to number their paper from one to ten. Explain to students that you are going to show them an image. They are to choose which Greek root the image represents, and write it down.

Show a slide to the class. Students mentally connect that image to a root and write down the root.

For example, you might show a slide with an image of colorful crayons. Students look at the crayons and think, "Crayons, color...chrom." They associate the image with the Greek root chrom. A meaningful and lasting mental connection is made.

Shuffle the order of the slides and repeat the process again, but this time erase the meaning from the board.

Trade and grade.

I've used this mnemonic tool for many years with ELA classes. The students enjoy it and it works. Once students know how to do it, I can do this activity with them at any time. I find it's especially useful in those minutes when students get restless, like right before lunch or the end of the period/day. I tell them, "Time for a Greek and Latin roots quiz!" They all groan, get out some paper and number it from one to ten, and away we go.

Related Products

This free Greek and Latin roots product is part of a complete mnemonic unit on Greek and Latin roots: The 84 Most Common Greek and Latin Roots Mnemonic Unit - Common Core Aligned

Why is it important?

Greek roots are word parts that have meaning. They are the building blocks of thousands of English words. Chronology, polygon, bicycle, telescope, astrophysics, hyperventilate — the list goes on an on — all these words contain one or two Greek roots.

Knowledge of word roots and their meaning is important and useful for our students because it gives them the ability to decode the meaning of unfamiliar words in a variety of situations.

Why use these flash cards?

There are three, research-proven components to memorization, and this tool covers all three:

1. Teach to multiple sensory modalities.

2. Information is remembered best if it is interesting or useful.

3. New information is easier to remember if it can be linked to something already stored in the memory bank.

These flash cards have a distinct advantage over traditional flash cards in that they are BIG. You can use them with the whole class at once. You can also set them up at a center or classroom computer and have students rotate through individually.

Computer Requirements

(PC Requirements: Microsoft PowerPoint 2002 and above; Mac Requirements: Microsoft PowerPoint 2011 and above)

This bundle covers the following Greek roots.

1. anti - against, opposite

2. aristo - best

3. astro - star

4. auto - self

5. bi - two

6. bio - life

7. chrom - color

8. chron - time

9. cine/kine - motion

10. cosm - universe, world, order

All of the images used in this product are used in accordance with the terms of use set by their creators. No images were used without permission.