Figurative Language 2nd Grade Unit

Lessons & Units

Figurative Language 2nd Grade Unit

Lessons

Lesson 1: Figurative Language Identify and describe figurative language and its meaning.

Once in a Blue Moon

Lesson 2: Personification Identify examples of personification and the character being personified.

The Runaway Tortilla

Lesson 3: Idioms Identify and describe the meaning of an idiom.

More Parts

Unit Extension Ideas

Have students read the meaning of several idioms in:
- There’s a Frog in My Throat by Loreen Leedy
- Scholastic Dictionary of 100 Idioms by Marvin Terban
- Punching the Clock by Marvin Terban
Read The Trouble with Elephants by Chris Riddell aloud and have students identify the character being personified and explain how they know.
Compare The Runaway Tortilla by Eric Kimmel to the story of the Gingerbread Man. Have students identify which character is personified in The Gingerbread Man and compare this character to the tortilla in The Runaway Tortilla.
Read any of the books in the Amelia Bedelia series by Peggy Parrish. Have students identify Amelia’s actions and the idioms in the book and explain what she really should be doing.
Play an idiom match game. Write idioms on sentence strips. On additional sentence strips, write the literal meaning of each idiom. Have students match the figurative meaning of each idiom to its literal meaning.
Write idioms on several slips of paper and place them in a bag. Then have each student select an idiom out of the bag and illustrate it. Students can guess the idiom that the artist is drawing and explain its literal meaning.
Have students create figurative language books by illustrating the real meanings of a variety of idioms (such as “raining cats and dogs”).
Students may write a story in which the main character is an example of personification. The students can also include idioms in the plot of the story.
Have students write and illustrate the figurative meanings of idioms on one side of a piece of paper and the literal meaning on the other.