Greek Roots Visual Flash Cards

These printable flash cards work like traditional flash cards, except instead of using plain ol' text, they use interesting and colorful photos and illustrations to teach your students the meaning of Greek roots. How does it work? You show an image to the class, and students associate that image with a Greek stem.

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

This download contains three sets of 30 or more flash cards. Each set covers 10 roots.

I've used these flash cards many times with middle school and high school English and Science classes. The students enjoy it and it works.

Great for Literacy Centers or pocket charts. Just print them on card stock and paste them back to back. Voila, you have big, colorful, visual flash cards. Optionally, you can keep the photo and the answer separate and have students match the root to the picture that fits the root.

This is part one of a two-part series. This part 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

The second part can be found here.
Greek Roots Visual Flash Cards - Part 2 (CRACY - ZOO)

This mnemonic tool works just like flash cards, but it is far more effective and fun because it uses high-quality images and illustrations to help your students build meaningful and lasting mental connections. Perfect for visual learners but suited to all types.

There are three, research-proven components to memorization, and this tool covers all three:
Teach to multiple sensory modalities, i.e. visual learners.
Information is remembered best if it is interesting or useful.
New information is easier to remember if it can be linked to something already stored in the memory bank.

Download the free preview to check it out!

In these PowerPoints, you will find two or more images to represent each root. Having more than one image allows you to use the flash cards again and again, practicing the same roots over and over, without boring the kids with the same images they have already seen before. There are enough choices that you will never show the exact same set of images twice unless you want to. Another reason I provide more than one image per root is that some roots, like cosm or phys, have more than one meaning, so it is important to teach all the meanings. Also, having three or more images allows you to tailor the PowerPoint to your students' experience and maturity.

I have used this tool many times in the past with great success. I created it when I was teaching summer school English. Classes were long and the students' grade levels were varied. I needed something flexible and fun, easy enough for everyone to understand, and worthwhile. I wanted to teach the students something measurable, so I could be sure they had learned something useful in their five weeks of Summer School. Students enjoyed it and it worked.

It's flexible enough to be used for entire periods or small pockets of time. It requires few materials. Forget about spending hours in the copy room duplicating packets or handouts. All the kids need are some roots and meanings written on the board, some notebook paper, and something to write with. It can be used again and again.

There are many things I love about using this mnemonic tool in the classroom.
Cross-curricular: Greek roots are found in every subject, from Science to Math to English to Art to Phys Ed.
Very little prep time required - just decide what Greek roots you want to cover, mix up the slides, and away you go.
Little to no materials required.
Flexible - use it for an entire period or just a few minutes.

All of the images in these mnemonic flash cards were used in accordance with the terms of use set by their creators. No images were used without permission.
This product is in Microsoft Office PowerPoint Version 97-2003.