Learning the Languag

Much of our figurative language learning can not be replicated outside of the classroom. We are accessing different media ...

Do you know these idioms? (It is part of an on-line contest of literal images that Ms. Leom carefully selected the fourth grade friendly images):

soft light

whatever floats your boat

quitting cold turkey

all ears

catching a cab

in the lime light

We are reading different books, creating class posters,

using index cards, videos, and more. Ask your fourth graders to share what we are learning (idioms, similes, metaphors, onomatopoeia, personification, and more). We are introducing each skill, adding a definition together in class, doing many examples over several days, and summarizing our learning in a Figurative Language Packet.

Figurative Language matters. Fourth graders are reading more complex texts, that often include many examples of figurative language. If you are reading a book about a subject, and the author uses idioms to tell the story, you may lose fluency, trying to figure out how the idiom "under the weather" fits into your story. As we are expanding our learning, it is a thrill as fourth graders come into class each day, sharing their many connections and real-world figurative language experiences. It is amazing how we are surrounded by figurative language, and didn't know what we were missing until we learned the "language".