What Are Compound Words? | Compound words for kids | Learn about the 3 kinds of compound words

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**Compound Words for Kids**

We’re going to show you a list of words. See if you can guess what they all have in common. But before you begin, here’s a hint: look at the words instead of listening to the words.

The words are: airplane, afternoon, grandmother, blueberry, bedroom, and airbrush.

Do you notice anything that these words have in common? Let’s look closely at a couple of the words.

Start with the word “airplane.” What do you notice about this word? Can you separate it into two words? The word “airplane” separated becomes “air” and “plane.”

What about the word “afternoon”? Can that word be separated as well? If you separate that word into two words, you get “after” and “noon.”

Now look at the list of words again. Did you notice that all these words can be separated into two smaller words? These words are called compound words.

What are compound words? Great question! Compound words are two or more smaller words that are joined together to make a whole new word, and that new word has a different meaning than the smaller words. Many small words are joined together to create compound words.

Look again at the compound word “airplane.” You know what the words “air” and “plane” mean, and you know that the definition of “air” is different than the definition of “plane.” But did you notice that when you put the two words “air” and “plane” together, the new word “airplane” also has a different meaning?

By the way, when the word “airplane” is separated into two words, “air” and “plane,” can you see how “airplane” got its name? It’s a plane that flies in the air.

Separating compound words into smaller words can help you define the meaning of a compound word.

Look at the word “blueberry.” If you separate that word into two smaller words, you get “blue” and “berry,” or in other words, a berry that’s blue.

How about the compound word “bedroom”? Separate that into two words, and you get “bed” and “room,” or a room with a bed in it.

If you don’t know the definition of some compound words, try separating the compound word into smaller words, then see if you can figure out the meaning of the compound word. A lot of definitions of compound words can be figured out simply by separating them into smaller words.

Take a look at this sentence: “The airfield overflowed with airplanes.” How many compound words can you find in that sentence? “Airfield,” “overflowed,” and “airplane.”

You probably know the meaning of the words “overflowed” and “airplane,” but you may not know the meaning of the word “airfield.” If you separate the two words that make up the compound word “airfield,” you get “air” and “field.”

If you look back at the sentence, it says, “The airfield overflowed with airplanes.” So using the two words “air” and “field” and the sentence as clues, can you figure out that an airfield is an area of land for airplanes? In fact, airfields are places where planes take off, land, and receive maintenance.

There are different types of compound words: closed compound words, open compound words, and hyphenated compound words.

So far, we’ve talked about closed compound words. These are words like “haircut,” “airport,” “milkman,” “waterway,” and “makeup.” They are closed compound words because there are no spaces between the two words.

So if a closed compound word has no spaces, can you guess what an open compound word has? Spaces, of course! Here are some examples of open compound words: “high school,” “dining room,” and “school bus.”

Open compound words are separate words that, when put together, create a new word and meaning. The words “high” and “school” have separate meanings, and when you put the two words together to create the compound word “high school,” it also means something different. It’s the same with the words “dining room” and “school bus.” Together, those words mean something different than they do separately.

Now that you know about closed and open compound words, let’s learn about hyphenated compound words. A hyphen is a dash that is used to join words. It looks like this: hyphens let us know that joined words have a combined meaning.

A hyphenated compound word is formed when two or more separate words are joined together by a hyphen. Hyphenated compound words look like this: “twofold,” “check-in,” “long-term,” “father-in-law,” “well-known,” “merry-go-round,” “21,” and “first-rate.”

Now that you know the three types of compound words, let’s do a compound word activity! When a compound word appears on the screen, you say whether it’s a closed compound word, an open compound word, or a hyphenated compound word. You ready? Here we go!

“Rollerblade.” If you said closed, you’re right! It’s closed because there is no space between the words “roller” and “blade.”

Okay, how about this word: “earthworm.” We tried to trick you, didn’t we? That’s closed again!

Okay, what about this word: “ice cream.” Since there is a space between the two words “ice” and “cream,” then “ice cream” is an open compound word. Think of open compound words as having a space or opening between the words, like in the word “living room.”

Okay, here’s your next word: “get-together.” If you knew that was a hyphenated compound, great job! Any time you see a hyphen between two or more words that together create a new word, then that becomes a hyphenated compound word. The word “self-esteem” is another example.

Now let’s look at three different sentences with open, closed, and hyphenated compounds. See if you can guess which type of compound words are in each sentence.

“The fireflies seem to be everywhere, especially at nighttime under the moonlight.” Can you find the compound words in that sentence? “Fireflies,” “everywhere,” “nighttime,” “moonlight.”

Are those words closed, open, or hyphenated compounds? If there aren’t spaces or hyphens between the words, then we know those are closed compound words. Great job!

Let’s look at the next sentence: “The high school musicians will give a concert in the band room later this evening.” Can you find the two compound words in this sentence? Did you say the words “high school” and “band room”? Well done!

Now, are those compound words closed, open, or hyphenated? If there are no hyphens joining those words and the words have a space between them, then we can guess that those words are open compound words.

Last sentence: “It was the young man’s 25th birthday, and it was a top-notch party.” This one’s pretty easy, right? If you said that the words “25th” and “top-notch” are hyphenated compounds, then you’re doing a great job recognizing the three different types of compound words.

Sometimes compound words can be a bit tricky to figure out because some of them can be written as closed or open compounds. For example, the word “treehouse” is a compound word that you may see written as “treehouse” and “tree house.”

But the more you see, read, write, and use compound words, the better you will get at understanding and recognizing them. You don’t need to know every single one, but it is helpful for you to be able to recognize a compound word when you do see one.

As you go through each day reading and writing, start looking for compound words. Take them apart in your mind. This exercise can help you with spelling new words as well as learning the meaning of compound words. Soon you’ll begin to see compound words pop up everywhere.

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