Educational Songs with Free Worksheets

An engaging rap song for teaching Latin and Greek meanings and etymology to students. Includes fun worksheets and multiple versions of the song to assist with scaffolding.

This song presents common prefixes, suffixes and roots as linguistic units, and helps students understand their role and placement in word construction. Each verse focuses on a different aspect of building words using common prefixes, suffixes and roots. The additional materials including worksheets and online resources, help teachers, parents and students understand word construction and meaning. Students will enjoy building words and increasing their vocabulary.



This song is suitable for elementary school, middle school, and high school students, as well as ESL, ELL or any students experiencing difficulty with the English language.

Chorus

Words are power, and that’s the truth

Prefixes, suffixes, and they all got roots

Words are power, they run this town

So let’s run the track back, and break ‘em on down



Verse I

Let me break this down, we start with root words the truest

Not a full word, just a linguistic unit

You get a lot of room here to improvise

Visualize words of small size as I summarize

“aqua” means water, “ami” means love

“bio” means life, “hemo” means blood

“geo” means earth, and “vita” means life

Let’s hit the next topic so y’all can get it right



Chorus



Verse II

You want to know what’s next, it’s the prefix step

The initial portion of a term or object

Look at the word itself, it’s a two-part patch

“pre” means before, and “fix” is to attach

“anti-” means against, “inter-” means between

“poly-” means many, while “homo-” means the same

“pseudo-” means false, and “trans-” mean across

Prefixes start words, you should never take a loss



Chorus



Verse III

If prefixes come before, then what’s the next chapter

Suffixes follows root words, so they must come after

And while this may sound absurd

A suffix can also change the grammar function of a whole word

“Wait, from adjectives to adverbs?” Like clear into clearly

“But then child into childish?” It’s semantics, can you hear me?

“-ology” means study of, “-ism” is belief in

“-cide” means killing, and “-or” and “-er” mean demonstration

“-phobia” means fear of, “-kinesis” means movement

And that’s what it is, now you’re getting some improvement