Great Books for Teaching Idioms to Upper Elementary Students

Picture books are always a great way to introduce a lesson, and reading aloud a book to upper elementary students when teaching idioms is no exception. As a matter of fact, they absolutely LOVE interacting with these books. From trying to guess the idiom from the illustration provided in the book to inferring what the idiom means, it is such a fun and engaging way to start the lesson.


Below, I have provided a list of books that make great additions to the classroom either as read alouds or as reference materials for your upper elementary students. 

The first section lists funny read alouds that incorporate idioms throughout them. Students will get a kick out of the literal meanings of the idioms as they are portrayed throughout the book. The second section lists titles that include collections of idioms and directly explain the meaning of each of them. 

(This blog post contains Amazon Affiliate links throughout in order to help you find the resources quickly. This means that Amazon will send a few pennies my way for orders placed through the link at no extra charge to you.)

Entertaining Picture Books for Teaching Idioms:

1. More Parts by Tedd Arnold

2. Even More Parts by Tedd Arnold

Books Containing Idioms and Explain Their Meaning:

Raining Cats and Dogs: A Collection of Irresistible Idioms and Illustrations to Tickle the Funny Bones of Young People by Will Moses

Birds of a Feather: A Book of Idioms and Silly Pictures by Vanita Oelschlager

Birds of a Feather has more of a primary feel as the illustrations are large and colorful and the idioms are written in large fonts, but the idioms’ meanings are included and sample sentences as well. It is a fun book (just take a look at the characters’ expressions) that can easily been shared and read aloud to a large group of students.

There’s a Frog in my Throat!: 440 Animal Sayings a Little Bird Told Me by Holiday House

Hair of the Dog to Paint the Town Red: The Curious Origins of Everyday Saying and Fun Phrases by Andrew Thompson

What I love about Hair of the Dog to Paint the Town Red, is that although it is not a read aloud book, students who are curious by nature will love the fact that in this book the origins behind 400 idioms are included.

In a Pickle and Other Funny Idioms by Marvin Turban

Mad as a Wet Hen and Other Funny Idioms by Marvin Turban

Punching the Clock: Funny Action Idioms by Marvin Turban

Scholastic Dictionary of Idioms by Marvin Turban

This dictionary is also written by Marvin Terban and includes over 700 idioms!!!!

Extension/Early Finishers Activity:

In upper elementary classrooms, there is so much going on in any given time. For this reason, I love to have meaningful and engaging early finisher activities available for my students.

Scavenger Hunt

After introducing my students to idioms, I love to set out an Idiom Scavenger Hunt extension activity. It’s a way to get students looking through reference books and exposing them to a large variety of idioms.

In this activity, students are challenged to find an idiom for each category listed and write the idiom’s meaning. They can use reference books, online resources, or our Idiom of the Week resource which is posted in the classroom.

If you’d like to use this extension activity in your classroom, click HERE or on the image below.

Idiom T-Shirt Design and Fashion Show

Another set of activities we have done in the past are designing “literal” meaning idiom t-shirts and then showed them off during an idiom fashion show. This activity took us 2-3 days. However, it was worth every minute! Students had so much fun and learned so much about idioms. 

Although idioms can be challenging for many students, using books for teaching idioms as read alouds makes it extremely engaging.

Do you have any fun idiom activities you like to implement in class? Let me know in the comments.

More Idiom Resource You May Like:

• Figurative Language Print and Fold Booklets
• Idiom Task Cards
• Idiom I Have, Who Has
• Idiom of The Week