Words on the Vine: 36 Vocabulary Units on Root Words (Paperback)

by Claudia Vurnakes (Author) "If anyone knows leaves, these caterpillars do!..." (more)
Key Phrases: correct vocabulary word, ten vocabulary words, matching definition, Instructional Fair, Help Wanted, Abraham Lincoln (more...)

Editorial Reviews

Product Description
Ancient Latin and Greek live on in the words we speak every day. Introduce your students to the fun and challenge of word genealogy with Words on the Vine, a 36-unit vocabulary program based on common Latin and Greek roots that will provide you witha framework for an entire school year. Each unit introduces ten related words and shows how their definitions can be traced back to a common meaning. Students first examine each word in context to understand its correct usage. Then theyhave the opportunity to put the words to work for themselves in creative and challenging assignments. Each unit provides easy-to-remember visual clues, fun-to-read usage examples, and hand-on activities.

Product Details

• Paperback: 128 pages
• Publisher: Instructional Fair (January 29, 1999)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1568226616
• ISBN-13: 978-1568226613
• Product Dimensions: 10.7 x 8.2 x 0.4 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.3 out of 5 stars See all reviews (9 customer reviews)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #18,017 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

55 of 56 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A good intro to the subject, October 6, 2000

By	Erica ([e-mail]) - See all my reviews

We use this marvelous book as a supplement to our formal Latin program for our 4 homeschooled kids. It's wonderful, I can't rave about it enough. It is a good introduction to roots in our language, and it's amusing, also, a fact that has kept our kids hooked for about a year.

Each root (mal, mano, gen, etc) has about 5 pages of activities to help seal both the root and its English derivatives into a kid's head. These are often VERY funny. They're short...each page is covered easily in about 1/2 hour. They're reproducable. The skill-level is variable. The humor makes it suitable for a wide range of kids...4th-5th grade through High School. I know that sounds ambitious, but it's really true! Each page has the root and its origin printed at the top. By the end of the book, a kid should know 35 roots and hundreds of new English vocabulary words. Magic!

I've searched in vain for a sequel to this gem. Sadly, so far there isn't one. But whenever Latin gets unbearably dull for my kids, I pull out "Words From The Vine", and we have some fun.

46 of 48 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Words on the Vine: 36 Vocabulary Units on Root Words, July 8, 2000

By	janicen - See all my reviews

A friend and I are using this workbook (along with English from the Roots Up) with our children, ages 8, 10, and 12. The kids are working on the pages together, one root word per session. Each root has three workbook-style pages (each covering the same 10 words) of varied and fun (and often funny) questions. The workbook pages approach the words from a good variety of angles, taking advantage of different strengths and learning styles. The kids really enjoy it and it has succeeded in making them fascinated with this subject, which is just what I hoped it would do. The only drawback is that there are only 36 roots (350 words) covered. I know we will all be sorry when we finish this fascinating book.

Added summer 2006. I wrote this review 4 years ago, and I still haven't come across another way to learn word roots that is this fun. I wish the author had written a series and not just one book.

70 of 77 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Great but not exactly what I was hoping for...., February 9, 2004

By	Kimberly J. Mcgee "Earthmama" (Owatonna, MN USA) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

I just started using Words on the Vine with my homeschooled 9-year-old a few months ago. I stumbled across it one day while browsing Amazon and thought it looked like it would be fun as well as educational (it is). I also thought I had found a secular text, I was wrong. We were several roots into the book before I noticed the first one - a question that asks, "Name a holiday that a Gentile does not celebrate. Why?" Uh-oh, so I start flipping through the book. Sure enough there's more - like "name two Archangels", a modern day Jonah & the Wale tale, along with a few others. On the other side of the coin, to be totally fair, there are also questions about what astrologers are, a writing assignment about what it would be like to be reincarnated as a bird, and mentioning of T-rex ruling during the late Mesozoic Era. If ANY of these things seriously bother you, you're probably better off looking elsewhere.

That said this is still a really great book and I would certainly buy it again! You'll definitely do a lot more that just learn some Latin/Greek roots and improve your vocabulary. Many of the questions are related to history, geography, and science so unless you're a walking encyclopedia you'll probably need to do some research to answer them. For example: In what South American country have hydrolyte geodes been found? How did the ancient Egyptians use geometry? Who developed ideas that contradicted Ptolemy's geocentric model of the universe? What famous subterranean tourist site is located in New Mexico? Where is John F. Kennedy interred? Name three Mediterranean countries.... Etc. You'll definitely want to have a dictionary and an encyclopedia handy (or at least access to the Internet).