St Patrick’s Day is right around the corner! I love using this holiday to teach about idioms! What is an idiom? Idioms are words that don’t mean what they say! They are usually a group of words, well known and used by native speakers of a language, that can’t be understood by the individual meaning of the words. Why teach idioms? Students develop a clear understanding of idioms with direct instruction, read-alouds, teacher modeling and student-centered activities. Here is one way to teach idioms: • When presenting idioms to students, introduce a group of 4 to 5 idioms together. It is best to group the idioms into a category, for example; before St. Patrick’s Day teach idioms that use green in them! • Always use stories or relate personal conversations to introduce each idiom in context. Great for Kinder through 5th grade!