History of Project

All of the pictures that are linked have been drawn by children from Nanaimo, British Columbia, Canada. The children who drew them were 9-11 years old when they drew them. These pictures illustrate what an idiom actually says and not what the idiom actually means. We used a loose definition of idioms to basically define idioms to be idiotic. In other words they are expressions that generally need explanations to be understood. They often have very interesting origins but sometimes their origins are not even known. What each student did was draw pictures of exactly what the idiom said, not what the idiom meant. The idioms were explained after the student had drawn the picture and then put up on the wall. This was used as a team competition for the students and as an overflow and language activity for the teacher. There was nothing more fun than spending the last 5-30 minutes of a day or morning etc. to share some great art, build team spirit and teach language. After they were explained they were posted on the wall for the remainder of the year. For enrichment, students who were capable and willing would scan the idioms, upload them to the web and linked. Over the years this turned into a rather chaotic web structure! These are some pictures of my classroom (Mr. Taylor) at Rutherford Elementary School in Nanaimo, B.C. I have since retired and continue to work on the project periodically.

Over a period of years the children in my class went "kooky" learning about idioms