What’s the Saying?

This engaging figurative language worksheet helps students strengthen vocabulary development, reading comprehension, contextual reasoning, and figurative interpretation by identifying idioms from descriptive clues. Students read short definitions or scenarios and determine the correct idiomatic expression-such as piece of cake, raining cats and dogs, or break the ice-connecting meaning to expression through careful thinking and recall.

Learning Goals

• Figurative Language Understanding – Students recognize idioms and connect non-literal phrases to their intended meanings.
• Vocabulary Development – Learners expand familiarity with common idiomatic expressions used in everyday language.
• Context Clue Application – The activity reinforces using descriptions and scenarios to infer correct phrases.
• Reading Comprehension & Interpretation – Students analyze clues closely to ensure accurate and logical matches.

Instructional Benefits

• Teacher-Created Resource – Designed by educators to support elementary and upper elementary ELA standards.
• Reasoning-Based Format – Encourages thinking beyond memorization through clues and definitions.
• Highly Engaging Practice – The guessing-and-recall structure keeps students motivated and focused.
• Flexible Classroom Use – Ideal for independent practice, literacy centers, warm-ups, or assessment.
• Low-Prep Printable – Ready to use in classroom and homeschool settings.

This printable worksheet gives students meaningful practice with idioms, contextual reasoning, and figurative language comprehension. By identifying expressions based on meaning rather than wording, learners build stronger vocabulary connections and improve interpretation skills. Whether used in a classroom lesson or a homeschool environment, this activity supports confident understanding of figurative speech, clearer reading comprehension, and expressive language growth.

This worksheet is part of our Idioms collection.