Idiom Project

Idiom Project Idioms appear in every language, and English has thousands of them. They are often confusing because the meaning of the whole group of words taken together has little, often nothing, to do with the meaning of the words taken one by one. For instance, to “let the cat out of the bag” means to reveal a secret. Today the phrase has nothing to do with a cat or a bag, but a hundred years ago, it actually did. In order to understand a language, you must know what the idioms in the language mean. If you try to figure out the meaning of an idiom literally, word by word, you will get confused. You have to understand the “hidden” meaning.

Terban, Martin. Scholastic Dictionary of Idioms. New York: Scholastic, Inc., 1996.

To enhance our study of figurative language, the students will be participating in an “Idiom Day” on October 30th. The students are to come up with a school appropriate costume to illustrate or represent an idiom. The costume will be worn during school on that day. You must really “dress” the part. The costume portion of the assignment counts as 50 points. The more the costume portrays the idiom, the more points are earned. If a child simply paints their thumb green for the idiom “I have a green thumb” they would not earn as many points as someone who dresses up as a farmer with a green thumb and plants on their overalls. Along with wearing the costume, the student needs to bring to class that day a written explanation of the meaning of the idiom and the idiom’s origin or history in paragraph form. This explanation may be handwritten in cursive or typed with a font of choice. The idiom must also be used in an original sentence. No two students can have the same idiom (per class). You need to have three choices in case your first two choices are taken on the day we pick in class. In the event that more than one student chooses the same idiom, you will each select a number and the closest number to what the teacher has will be allowed to complete that idiom. We encourage “thinking outside the box”. Please be creative! This is a project grade. For ideas and examples, go to our class websites and click the icon “Links” to visit websites containing the needed information. We appreciate your help in extending the learning for your child. It is not necessary to buy anything for the costume. A costume may be created from things found around the house. This is an assignment and is not an option. Thank you for encouraging your child to do the best job possible. ** Make sure that you know the origin or history of the idiom before choosing one to do- that means you will have to do some research and learn the history of several before you can choose.

Please let us know if you have any questions. Sixth grade Language Arts team