The History of Language
Idioms Week 1 - To Let the Cat Out of the bag
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Idiom of the Week! - To Let the Cat Out of the Bag
This activity strengthens students’ speaking and listening skills. Use the video as a conversation starter. Ask open-ended questions and guide students to listen actively to one another’s stories. Encourage clear expression and reflective thinking. This is also a great chance to model respectful group dialogue and turn-taking.
Focus: Speaking & Listening
Watch Gavin’s short video to learn all about the saying “letting the cat out of the bag.” It might sound funny, but it actually has a clever (and sneaky!) history. Once you’ve watched the video, turn to a partner and chat about what surprised you. Have you ever let a secret slip? How did it feel? Did it cause trouble or help in the end? Be ready to share your ideas with the class.
Vocabulary – Weekly Keywords
This task helps children explore new vocabulary in a meaningful context. Start by discussing the words aloud as a class. Encourage students to create definitions in their own voice to support ownership of learning. Sketching a visual connection to one word helps reinforce retention, especially for visual learners.
Focus: Vocabulary Building
Here are your ten powerful words for the week:
Find out what each word means by looking it up or asking someone.
Write a short definition in your own words and once finished you may wish to use each word in a sentence that shows you understand it or choose one of the words and draw a little sketch to help you remember it.
Quote of the Week
This task encourages reflection and analysis. Facilitate a short class discussion, then allow individual or group writing. Emphasise linking ideas across texts and themes. Invite children to support their interpretations with examples, helping them learn how to build an argument and explore ideas deeply.
Focus: Critical Thinking
Read this quote with a friend:
“If you tell the truth, you don’t have to remember anything.” – Mark Twain
Have a chat about what you think it means. Why do you think Mark Twain believed truth-telling made life easier? How might honesty shape the way we live, learn, and connect with others?
Now, using the quote card template provided, find a new quote about honesty from another famous person. It could be someone from history, a leader you admire, or a modern-day role model. Add their quote to your card, decorate it and display it in your school halls or classroom.
Idiom Card – Where Did It Come From?
Children practise decoding figurative language and understanding idiom origins. Read the story together and highlight key moments. Discuss the literal and figurative meanings of the phrase. The comic activity encourages synthesis of text and visual expression, supporting understanding across multiple learning styles.
Focus: Reading for Meaning
Did you know this saying is about a sneaky trick from hundreds of years ago? In old marketplaces, some sellers tried to secretly swap piglets for cats inside sacks. But when someone opened the bag – surprise! The secret was out. That’s how the idiom “letting the cat out of the bag” began. Read the story, then draw a comic showing this moment. Add speech bubbles to make your scene funny or dramatic!
Comprehension History Card – Life Back Then
Students build contextual understanding of the idiom by exploring historical settings. Provide scaffolding for the reading passage and guide inference-making. Invite students to compare past and present lifestyles. The creative writing extension deepens empathy and helps children apply their reading in a meaningful way.
Focus: Reading Comprehension
Let’s go back to the 1500s! Imagine walking through a busy marketplace—what would you see, smell, and hear? What kinds of things were being sold? How did people dress and trade? Read your history card to learn about life in those times. Then, answer the questions and imagine what job you might have had back then. Would you be a merchant, a helper, a performer? Write a few sentences describing your day in the market.
Write Your Answers
This activity encourages children to reflect on a historical scene and answer comprehension questions in full sentences. It promotes critical thinking, sentence construction, and historical understanding. The accompanying answer card provides structure and motivation, allowing students to work at their own pace in a calm, independent, and confidence-building environment.
Focus - Comprehension and Collaboration
Use this card to record your answers from the comprehension questions above.
Remember to try and write in full sentences and get as far as you can.
Thou can do this!!
Spin the Wheel and Choose Your Idiom!
During this activity, allow the children to use the wheel to determine which era they’ll explore for their idiom of choice. The element of surprise adds excitement and a sense of adventure to their learning journey.
Encourage fun and laughter as the wheel spins — build the suspense, cheer together, and make it feel like a moment of celebration! At the same time, make sure the children feel a sense of ownership. Give them freedom to dive into their era in a way that feels right for them.
Each week, you'll have the chance to dive into a new idiom from a different moment in history — all revealed in the next part of this sequence.
But first… let’s leave it up to fate!
Spin the wheel and let random chance decide which era you’ll be exploring. Once your time period is revealed, head to the matching card in the next section of this lesson and discover an idiom worth unravelling.
Spin the wheel… and hold on tight!
Choose This Week's Idiom to Research
Each week, students independently select an idiom to research, exploring its origin, history, and meaning. This fosters critical thinking, creativity, and deep engagement with language. As they uncover the cultural stories behind each phrase, students build strong research skills and learn to manage their time and present their findings confidently. The activity promotes independence, curiosity, and cross-curricular learning, allowing children to take ownership of their education while developing a rich understanding of language and history.
Focus - Independent Research
Each week, we’re going to ask you to choose your very own idiom to investigate and explore. Etymology—the study of word origins—is a fascinating way to uncover the hidden stories behind the phrases we use every day. Some idioms date back hundreds of years, while others are more modern and mysterious.
Take a look at the menu of idioms. Each week, you’ll pick one to use as the foundation for your research.
Through these phrases, we can uncover so much about the history, culture, and way of life of humankind throughout the ages.
Choose an Idiom – Make Your Own Comic
This task encourages inquiry, summarising, and creativity. Provide a list of common idioms or let students select their own. Offer sentence starters and comic templates to support those who need help. Children are applying comprehension and storytelling skills through multiple forms of expression.
Focus: Independent Research
Now it’s your turn to make a comic strip! Choose a new idiom—one that sounds funny, strange, or really interesting—and find out where it comes from and what it actually means. Once you understand it, create your own four-panel comic to show someone using the idiom in a real or silly situation. Make sure each panel includes a speech bubble to help tell the story clearly. Don’t forget to include the idiom, its meaning, and a sentence using it in context. Be as creative as you like—you’ll be sharing your comic with the class later this week!
Real World Learning – Create a Code of Honesty for the School
Students will create a poster titled “Honesty Is…” to express what honesty means to them through words and visuals. This task encourages creativity, personal reflection, and student voice. Completed posters will be presented to the principal, with the chance for student ideas to be included in the school handbook.
Focus: Creative Communication
Real World Learning – Create a Code of Honesty for the School
Let’s make a difference! This week, you’ll be creating a powerful poster called “Honesty Is…” that shows what honesty really means to you and why it matters.
Think about questions like:
What does honesty look like?
Why is it important to tell the truth, even when it’s hard?
How can we be honest and still be kind?
Your poster should include your own ideas, drawings, or symbols that show honesty in action. You might include quotes, short messages, or even examples of what being honest looks like at school or in the playground.
Here’s the best bit: when your posters are finished, they’ll be presented to the school principal — and some of your ideas might even be added to the school handbook to guide future students. You're not just learning about honesty... you're helping to shape your school’s values!
Teach a Lesson – You’re the Teacher!
This task encourages ownership of knowledge and confidence in presentation. Support students in structuring their lesson using a simple outline. Encourage peer teaching or buddy class presentations. Teaching promotes deeper understanding, communication, and empathy—powerful life and learning skills.
Focus: Leadership & Teaching Skills
Now it’s your turn to teach! Create a fun mini-lesson to explain “letting the cat out of the bag” to someone younger (or to your classmates). You could use a drawing, a skit, a puppet, or even a game. Make sure you explain what the idiom means, where it came from, and give an example. Teaching something is a great way to learn it really well. Get ready to present and have fun!
Art Therapy - the 1500s
This activity invites children to explore daily life in 1500s Europe through observation, discussion, and creative expression. They'll study a detailed historical scene, identify key features, and imagine what life was like during that time. Using a black-and-white version of the image, children will colour it thoughtfully, ideally in a calm space with gentle music. This isn’t just art – it’s a chance to reflect, build empathy, and engage in mindful learning through history and creativity.
Focus: Quiet Reflection
Take a look at this image depicting life in Europe during the 1500s.
Talk about the different features you can see – what do you think is happening in the scene? Why might these things be taking place?
Then, using our template, spend some quiet time colouring in your own version of the image. You might like to put on some gentle music and find a peaceful spot, perhaps in the library, to help you focus and reflect.
This isn’t just a colouring-in activity – it’s a moment to let your mind wander, free from the stresses of the world. While you bring this scene to life with colour, take time to notice how you feel, and allow your imagination to drift gently back in time.
