Idioms Worksheets

About this resource

An idiom's words almost never mean what they say. "It's raining cats and dogs" does not mean animals are falling from the sky — it means it is raining very hard. This is a full idioms kit for second grade, with three practice formats that build from recognizing to sorting to writing: first matching an idiom to its real meaning, then cutting and sorting real meanings from not-the-meaning strips, then writing an idiom's real meaning in a child's own words.

EVERYTHING INSIDE (23 pages)

• 8 student pages in 3 page types plus a Helper page (below), each with a big "My name" line and one short instruction
• 34 common idioms, never repeated anywhere in the file, across all three formats: 18 on Match the Meaning (3 sets of 6), 12 on Sort Real or Not the Meaning (6 idioms per page across 2 pages), and 4 on Write the Real Meaning
• 42 printed items across Match and Sort: 18 sentences with 3 lettered choices each on Match the Meaning, plus 24 cut-and-glue strips on Sort Real or Not the Meaning (12 "Real Meaning" strips, 12 "Not the Meaning" strips)
• 2 cut-and-sort pages, 12 strips each (6 real meanings, 6 not-the-meaning strips), edge-to-edge in a 4-by-3 grid
• 2 answer keys taken straight from the same idiom data as the pages, plus the one criterion a Write the Real Meaning sentence must meet to count
• 1 tracker (16 rows), 1 team note, 1 home page, 1 filled example (an invented student), 1 phrase bank (21 starters)
• 1 binder cover and divider tabs (5 tabs plus a spine label) that drop straight into a classroom binder
• Start Here, a how-to-read-a-page page, a definitions page with blanks for your program's own wording, and a back page

Every idiom, sentence and meaning is pulled from an already-vetted 60-idiom bank (also used by this store's Idioms progress-monitoring probe) and hand-checked a second time for this pack: only idioms with one clear, unambiguous meaning and a familiar, concrete, grade-2-appropriate sentence made the cut.

THE THREE PAGE TYPES (dots show the level, never color)

1. What Is an Idiom? (1 dot) — the difference between what the words literally say and what the idiom really means, side by side, in kid words

2. Match the Meaning (1 dot, 3 pages) — read a sentence with the idiom underlined, circle A, B or C for the real meaning

3. Sort Real or Not the Meaning (2 dots, 2 pages) — cut meaning strips and glue them into a Real Meaning bin or a Not the Meaning bin

4. Write the Real Meaning (3 dots, 2 pages) — write what a given idiom really means in your own words, and draw a quick picture of it (eggs in a basket, a drawing board, thick and thin, the best of both worlds)

Match the Meaning comes in three sets of six idioms (A, B, C); Sort Real or Not the Meaning comes in two pages of six idioms each (twelve strips a page). No idiom appears twice anywhere in the file.

Built For The Child Holding The Page

A big "My name" line, one short instruction, large rounded letters, and space to write and draw. Nothing on a student page is written for an adult. Cutting is limited to Sort Real or Not the Meaning: 12 pieces a page in a 4-by-3 grid, edge to edge, each wide enough to read and glue.

Type In, Or Print

The name and date lines, the tracker, the team note, the home page and the definitions page note box are type-in fields in any PDF reader. The lines and drawing box a student writes and draws on are pencil work. This is a fillable PDF; it is not a Google Slides or PowerPoint file.

Who This Is For

Second grade classrooms, self-contained and resource rooms, and any teacher working with an older student who still needs this skill. The home page sends idioms to talk about to a family; the team note hands off what changed since the last meeting.

What This Is, And What It Is Not

Idiom-meaning practice with the record-keeping around it. It is not a probe, a goal bank or a scored data sheet, not a reading assessment, and not a claim about any student's age or rate of progress. Idioms with a contested or regional meaning are not in this pack, so a child is never asked to choose between two defensible readings. Write the Real Meaning is checked against one plain-language criterion, never a single required sentence.