13th October Silly Sayings Day

Silly Sayings Day is a day to celebrate and use humorous and metaphorical expressions, often referred to as idioms or colloquialisms. Idioms, adages, and proverbs are common expressions and sayings that have meanings beyond what can be understood by their individual words. 

idiom: a group of words established by usage as having a meaning not deducible from those of the individual words (e.g. over the moon, see the light ).

adage: a proverb or short statement expressing a general truth. 'out of sight, out of mind'.

proverb: a short, well-known pithy saying, stating a general truth or piece of advice.

Modern English language is loaded with idioms. We use common idioms every day, often without giving them a second thought. Consider these common phrases; “Don’t spill the beans,” “You’re barking up the wrong tree,” “Every cloud has a silver lining,” or “It’s not my cup of tea.”

However, for young children, multilingual learners, and neurodiverse learners, idioms can be very difficult. 

Idioms are a form of figurative language. Many picture books that make children laugh as they read use idioms. Tedd Arnold's Parts Trilogy of books is a good example of this.

Other books to look for:

And this amazing book might be in a library near you. 

17th August I Love My Feet Day

First off, I certainly do not love my feet. They are misshapen and beginning to give me problems, but that aside today is a day to think about pampering our feet and there are many ways to do that.

Have you ever thought about how many idioms there are in the English language that have 'feet' or 'foot' in them. Young students don't always understand what you mean when you use them. I remember saying to a child at camp once who wanted to get out of the line for the waterslide - It's alright to get cold feet. You don't have to do it. To which he said -  My feet aren't cold! I just don't want to do it.

People my age often say, 'take a load of your feet', meaning sit down, but a friend's grandchild said to his grandmother, 'but he doesn't have a load on his feet'.

You can 'drag your feet', 'fall on your feet', 'walk someone off their feet', 'have the world at your feet', 'vote with your feet', 'get your feet wet', 'sweep someone off their feet', 'be dead on your feet', 'think on your feet', 'stand on your own two feet', 'be under someone's feet', 'have two left feet', 'have the world at your feet', 'get a foot in the door', 'put your best foot forward', 'put your foot in your mouth', 'put your foot down', 'foot the bill', 'shoot yourself in the foot', 'have a foot in the grave'  and not have moved a foot at all!

So today is the day to have some fun with feet (or the word feet)!

Leonardo might have thought that a human foot was a feat of engineering and art, but when you look at feet, most animals feet are. They are designed with a purpose! Some feet are webbed. Why? Some designed for stomping. Why? Some animal feet can hold things easily, unlike human feet. Does the animal foot have a special name? What is a hoof? What is a paw, a talon, a clubfoot?

There are many fun books that will help answer questions such as these?

The book above, Best Foot Forward, together with these will also help you to start a conversation about what some idioms mean:

And then just for fun read:

Still need more? Look here.