Get Moving with an Exciting New Gallery Walk Activity!

Suppose you’re working on building your students’ vocabularies with a consistent review of prefixes and suffixes. In that case, we’ve got a fun new activity for you to get them up and moving while discovering a world of words with prefixes and suffixes.

This resource consists of two sets of prefix and suffix charts (12 of each) to use when learning about prefixes and suffixes. These charts are meant to be posted around the room and used in a “gallery walk” style activity in which students visit the different works of “word art” and add their knowledge to the chart by adding words they know that include the given prefixes and suffixes. This activity is an excellent way to create a collaborative learning environment that celebrates everyone’s input and participation in building a reference tool for the classroom.

How to Run a Gallery Walk Vocabulary Game

If you’re unfamiliar with the concept of a gallery walk, here’s the rundown…

Put your students in groups of 3-4, and give each group a different colored marker.

• Hang each sheet an equal distance apart on the walls in your room.
• Assign each group a starting card.
• Provide an allotted time (usually about 30 seconds)  for the groups to add as many words as they know (and have not already been added to the poster) with that prefix or suffix. When time is up, use a signal (e.g., blow a whistle, ring a bell, clap your hands, or flick the lights on and off) to tell the students to move to the next card.
• Students will move in the same direction. Play continues until the students return to the card they started at.
• You can even give a prize to the team that generated the most words by tallying the number of words written in each color.

When your gallery walk is complete, you’ll discover that you now have a ready-made word wall or vocabulary display for your classroom and individual students to reference when reading and writing.

• Prefixes include de, dis, ex, il, im, in, mis, non, pre, re, and un.
• Suffixes include able, al, er, est, ful, ible, ly, ing, less, ly, ness, and y.

Create Your Own Prefix and Suffix Games and More!

You can even turn these charts into a fun vocabulary game! Use your printer’s settings to print your charts 2-per-page and place them in numbered order around the room. Place your students in groups of 4 and give each group a different color marker. 

Choose a student from each group to come to the front to answer a question about a word using a prefix, ex. “What is the word that means “to write again”? The first student to call out the correct word gets the opportunity to roll a die. The number rolled is the number of words that their team needs to gather and write on the corresponding chart. Gameplay continues for a set amount of time, and the group with the most words (spelled correctly) on the charts wins a prize!

No-Prep Printable Prefix and Suffix Activities 

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Need more? Check out these fantastic Prefix and Suffix resources!

teaching resource

Prefix Worksheet: Im- and Non-

Reinforce students' understanding of im- and non- prefixes with a printable prefix worksheet.

teaching resource

Google Slides Interactive - Prefixes Activity

Practice adding prefixes to words by identifying, defining, and matching them in context.

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Building Words with Suffixes Sorting Activity

Build words by matching the root word to suffixes, recording the new words on the answer sheet.