A Fun Twist on Writing Idioms

This year seems to be slipping through my fingertips. I'm not sure if it's because I am only part-time, but my pacing seems off and I've had to readjust a lot as the scheduled time has come and gone for several of our projects.

A recent example of this is my mini-idioms unit I schedule around Valentine's Day. It's a fun way for students to practice these in their writing and we use my Idiom Build-a-Story Cards to get prepped for the holiday. This year, not so lucky.

So, after some readjustment and dropping the character and situation cards, I was still able to incorporate this activity but in a more general way. I'm excited to share this idea with you in case you're in the same boat as me, or are looking for an engaging project for your students during the upcoming testing season (#ick).

I began by printing out the idiom cards only in two ways: one set full-size, which I printed in color, laminated, and placed into binder rings for future reference.

The other way was to print all of the idiom cards onto one page. For this, I adjusted the print settings to print four pages on one sheet. I printed them in black and white and make a class set of copies. I also made a copy for myself for our anchor chart.

We began by cutting and gluing and creating our class anchor chart together. Most of the class had heard of some of these idioms in their life, so we shared together and created some short definitions and shared examples as we worked.

They glued these into their Writer's Notebooks and would use them to write their own examples on the following pages.

I modeled choosing one idiom at a time and writing about three sentences to use their idiom in context with themselves as the main character (which becomes important when we published later).

After meeting with a partner to revise and edit, they chose their favorite two idiom examples.

Publishing was my favorite part!

I used color printouts of their school pictures and they used those as their base for illustrating. They showed themselves living out the idiom as it meant literally and figuratively. So, presenting in front of the class with butterflies in their stomach, or getting ready for the party and jumping over a moon. They turned out so stinking cute!

I compiled all of them into a class book and had the kiddos sign the cover. This will live in our "Class Publications" book bin that has a class-made book from nearly all of my years of teaching. It's always a popular choice during DEAR time.

Enjoy this activity and pick up my Idiom pack HERE. Have a great weekend!