How to Teach Latin Root Words with Magic Spells

Any fan of Harry Potter with even the teeniest bit of awareness recognized that some of the lyrical magic spells were rhyming combinations of Latin root words and English words designed to sound like a real magic spell. Oculus Reparus, for example, is a combination of Oculus (the latin root word for eye) and Reparus, which sounds a lot like repair and is actually the French word for re-appear. Learn the method for creating magic spells using Latin root words and you can teach latin roots, too.

Instructions

    • 1

      Print a list of Latin nouns and their meanings. One of the easiest way to learn from such a list is to create flashcards with the English words on one side and the Latin words on the other. You could also put the English words in one column and the Latin words in another. If you use an excel spreadsheet you can re-sort the columns and make a worksheet where students draw a line from the latin word to its corresponding English word.

    • 2

      Find a list of Latin verbs and print them as well. You can use the same method of memorization with the verbs that you used with the nouns, like flashcards and comparative lists. See which words are similar to their English counterparts. Which words are different?

    • 3

      Adding an -us ending to a Latin verb puts it into the active plural tense, for example. The root verb for love is amo, and when we (more than one of us, so plural) are currently (actively) loving, it's amus, pronounced "a moose" but for magic spell writing purposes, and to take advantage of the Harry Potter British accent you can choose to allow students to say "us" instead.

    • 4

      For Magic Spell-writing sake, add an -us ending to the nouns, so that all of the words can rhyme. Make sure students know that the real Latin nouns and verbs all change ending according to how they are used, Latin is a language of few words with many meanings. The meanings of the words change according to their suffix.

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