We’ve heard so many proverbs and idioms on this trip. I think I’ve written most of them down, but if I’ve forgotten any, please add them!! – I think it will be really fun to teach these and others. There are several books out there on idioms. I also am a subscriber to an online site called “A phrase a week” that sends me periodic explanations for common phrases, proverbs and idioms. I think it would be fun to start my lesson planning with a list, then have the kids interview parents and grandparents to find more. We could research some. The last part of a unit would be to write a story and include as many as you can! An ongoing activity would be to collect idioms in the things we read – this would be a cool bulletin board!
- At Fort Western, looking for bed bugs in the feather bed over the straw ticking.
- Sleep Tight – tightening the ropes on a rope bed. Poem: Sleep tight, don’t let the bed bugs bite/if they bite squeeze them tight/And they won’t bite another night
- Flash in the pan – when a musket fires the first bit of gunpowder but not the other.
- Throw the baby out with the bath water – when they did bathe, the oldest went first and then on down the line. The water was so dirty by the time the baby got it, you could lose him in it!
- Half cocked – when only the first step of firing a musket is cocked, not the second part.
- Lock stock and barrel – the whole of a musket’s parts, the firing mechanism, the wooden stock and the barrel
- Don’t fire until you see the whites of their eyes – muskets had a very short range.
- Looking carefully for the whites of their eyes!
- Put that in your pipe and smoke it – they didn’t always have tobacco- so many things would do.
- Done to a turn – when meat was cooked in a reflecting oven and the spit had been turned all the way around (so it was done!)
- Keep the home fires burning – Huge job for pilgrim women.
- Done to a turn!
