Second Graders Perform Word Surgery
The second graders found a novel way to practice adding suffixes to words that will help them remember the process in the future. They dressed up like surgeons and performed some suffix surgery!
"In our FUNdations unit, we have been learning how to add suffixes to the end of a word," said 2nd grade teacher Beth Roberts. "We can add a suffix to compare things, to make things plural and we learned the 3 sounds of -ed."
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Ms. Roberts gave her students a series of printed words. The challenge was to find the suffix and highlight it. Then, they "fused" them together with a band-aid.
Of course, no surgery would be complete without gloves and a mask!
"So what happens is the word gets its ending," said 2nd grader Finn R. "It's very special for the word."
Aryn R. learned how a simple suffix can change a word from singular to plural.
"You make the word plural, and it becomes more than one," said Aryn. "I caught one fish. He caught fishes — he caught more than one fish."
Ms. Roberts cleverly used this activity to help the students develop core memories by making the process of learning enjoyable for them.
"It was really fun," said Ahana D. "It was a good activity. This was something I have never done before!"
Aryn added, "It helped us know which suffixes would be at the end."
"The -er can only be at the end of the word, it cannot be in, for example, the middle," noted Finn. "Only if you have a compound word. If you have a compound word the -er is able to go at the end of the word but then you add two words together, so that's only when er is allowed to do that."
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