Flip-a-Chip: Examining Affixes and Roots to Build Vocabulary

The Flip-a-Chip activity turns ordinary poker chips into a teaching tool, showing students how different affixes and roots can be joined to make words and then placed into a context-rich paragraph. Each set of chips contains two-word roots and two affixes that can be combined into four different words. For example, the prefixes im- and sup- might be written on the two sides of one poker chip, and the roots pose and press on the other chip. The four possible words (impose, impress, suppose, suppress ) are inserted into four blanks in a paragraph according to context clues. After practicing with both real and "virtual" chips (in the Flip-a-Chip online interactive), students work in pairs to create their own set of chips and corresponding paragraph. They exchange their packets to see whether the context clues are strong enough to enable classmates to fill in the blanks correctly.