The History of Language
Idioms Week 4 - To Fly Off the Handle
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Idiom of the Week! – Fly off the Handle
This activity strengthens students’ speaking and listening skills. Use the video as a spark for discussion. Ask open-ended questions like, “Have you ever seen someone lose their temper suddenly?” or “What are some better ways we can deal with big feelings before they explode?” Encourage students to share stories respectfully and practise listening carefully to others. This is a great chance to develop empathy, reflection, and confident self-expression.
Focus: Speaking & Listening
Watch Gavin’s short video to discover where the saying “fly off the handle” really comes from. It may sound dramatic, but it all started in the 1800s with a loose axe head, a powerful swing, and a moment of total chaos!
After the video, turn to a partner and talk about what you found interesting. Have you ever lost your temper suddenly, like the axe head flying through the air? What made you feel that way? What happened afterwards? Be ready to share your thoughts with the class.
Vocabulary – Weekly Keywords
This task helps children explore new vocabulary in a meaningful context. Start by reading the ten words aloud together and discussing any that are unfamiliar. Encourage children to define the words using their own language to promote ownership and deepen understanding. Link the vocabulary back to the story of the flying axe head and the sudden burst of anger to make each word relevant and memorable. A quick sketch helps visual learners build lasting connections.
Focus: Vocabulary Building
Here are your ten powerful words for the week:
temper, explode, warning, sudden, anger, handle, swing, outburst, expression, calm.
Find out what each word means by looking it up or asking someone.
Write a short definition in your own words.Use each word in a sentence that shows you understand it.
Choose one of the words and draw a small sketch to help you remember it.
Quote of the Week
This task encourages thoughtful reflection and analysis. Begin with a short class discussion about Bierce’s quote—ask students what it suggests about anger and why it can be so difficult to stay calm in the heat of the moment. Prompt comparisons with the idiom’s origin story to help them connect ideas across different texts. Encourage children to back up their interpretations with reasoning or personal examples. This activity helps build critical thinking, emotional intelligence, and ethical awareness.
Focus: Critical Thinking
Read this quote with a friend:
“Speak when you are angry and you will make the best speech you will ever regret.” – Ambrose Bierce
Have a chat about what you think it means. Why do you think people often say things they don’t mean when they lose their temper? How does this quote connect to the story of the flying axe head and the idea of emotions bursting out suddenly and without warning? What does it teach us about staying calm, thinking before we speak, and being responsible with our words?
Now, using the quote card template provided, find a new quote about calmness, self-control, or emotional responsibility from another well-known person. Add their quote to your card, decorate it, and display it proudly in your classroom or school hallway.
Idiom Card – Where Did It Come From?
Students build contextual understanding of the idiom by exploring its historical and cultural origins. Read the story of the flying axe head together, pausing to clarify unfamiliar concepts (e.g., tools used in the 1800s, the dangers of manual labour, or the meaning of temper). Invite students to make inferences: What might it have felt like to see someone lose their temper so suddenly? How would that affect the mood of the group or the sense of safety? Encourage them to compare that with modern situations where someone reacts angrily without warning.
Focus: Reading Comprehension
Did you know this saying goes all the way back to the 1800s? In those days, people used axes with wooden handles to chop wood. But if the axe head wasn’t fitted properly, it could suddenly fly off during a swing—fast, dangerous, and completely unexpected!
That’s how the idiom “fly off the handle” began—it meant to lose control suddenly and without warning, just like that flying axe head.
Comprehension History Card – Life Back Then
Students build contextual understanding of the idiom by stepping into the world where it originated. Read the history card together and pause to explore new vocabulary or historical references. Encourage children to visualise life in the 1800s—how people worked, the tools they used, and the risks involved in daily tasks like chopping wood. Invite comparisons between their world and ours, focusing on the idea of self-control, emotional outbursts, and how sudden anger can affect a group or community.
Focus: Reading Comprehension
Let’s travel back over 200 years to the 1800s! Imagine walking through a forest clearing or a busy lumber yard—what would you see, smell, and hear? Would there be the sharp ring of metal on wood, the scent of pine trees, or the creak of wooden carts carrying tools and timber?
Read your history card to learn all about daily life in the 1800s, when people used axes with wooden handles for chopping wood. Then, answer the questions and imagine what your life might have been like. Would you be a blacksmith, a carpenter, a logger—or perhaps the person warning others to stand back in case the axe head flew off the handle?
Write a few sentences describing a day in your life in the 1800s. What would you wear? What tools would you use? What kind of work would you do?
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. Encourage peer discussion before or after writing to support collaborative thinking and shared ideas.
Focus: Comprehension and Collaboration
Use this card to record your answers from the comprehension questions above.
Remember to write in full sentences and give thoughtful, detailed responses.
Think carefully about life in the 1800s and how people handled their emotions (or didn’t!).
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 explore, diving into its origin, meaning, and cultural background. Encourage curiosity and independence as they research, whether through books, videos, or trusted websites. Highlight how idioms like “fly off the handle” reveal fascinating insights into historical tools, everyday risks, and how language reflects real-life experiences. This task fosters self-directed learning, cross-curricular thinking, and confident communication.
Focus: Independent Research
Each week, you’ll get to choose a new idiom to investigate—just like we did with “fly off the handle.” The study of word origins (called etymology) helps us uncover the fascinating stories hidden in everyday language.
Some idioms come from tools and trades, like loose axe heads in the 1800s, while others come from animals, old traditions, or even battles!
Take a look at the idiom menu and choose one that sounds fun, mysterious, or meaningful to you. You’ll research where it came from, what it means, and how it’s used today. Then, you’ll share your findings in a creative way.
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Choose an Idiom – Make Your Own Comic
This task encourages inquiry, summarising, and creative storytelling. Begin by sharing a few playful idioms as a class—such as “fly off the handle”—to inspire imagination. Offer a list or allow students to choose their own idiom to research. Support those who need help with sentence starters (e.g., “I couldn’t hold it in any longer, and then I just...”) and model how a comic sequence flows from panel to panel. Use a four-panel template to provide structure and ensure that each story has a clear beginning, middle, and end.
Focus: Independent Research and Creative Arts
Now it’s your turn to become a comic creator!
Pick a new idiom—just like “fly off the handle”—that sounds funny, dramatic, or surprising. Find out where it comes from and what it actually means. Once you’ve got a clear understanding, it’s time to bring your idiom to life in a four-panel comic strip.
Show a character using the idiom in either a real-life or completely silly situation. Maybe someone suddenly loses their temper at a picnic because their sandwich is soggy, or an actual axe head flies through the air during woodwork class! Each panel should include a speech bubble to help tell the story clearly and creatively.
Design Challenge – Create a Calming Corner
This task connects history with citizenship, giving students agency in a real-life design process inspired by the past. Begin with a discussion about how people in earlier times—like in the 1800s with dangerous flying axe heads—needed better tools and safer systems. Link this to our own need for safer emotional spaces in school.
Support students as they brainstorm what a calming corner should include to promote peace, safety, and emotional wellbeing. Guide them to design thoughtful, creative spaces that help children manage strong feelings before they fly off the handle. Encourage persuasive, respectful presentations to teachers or principals, and foster teamwork as students create models, drawings, or cardboard prototypes of their designs.
This hands-on challenge builds creative communication, empathy, and collaboration—all while giving children a voice in shaping their environment.
Focus: Creative Communication and Teamwork
This week, you’re taking on a thoughtful design challenge: helping to create a calming corner for your classroom or playground—a quiet, comforting space where anyone can go when they feel angry, stressed, or overwhelmed.
Just like people in the past needed safe tools and spaces to work calmly—without flying off the handle—we need places in our school where emotions can be managed gently and respectfully.
Your task:
Work in teams to design a calming corner using drawings, cardboard boxes, recycled materials, or paint. Think about what would help someone feel calm and safe. Will there be soft colours? Gentle words? A quiet activity to help someone cool down?
Once your design is ready, present it to your teacher or principal for approval. You can include:
A drawing or model of the space
A short explanation of what’s inside and why
Suggestions for where it could be set up and how it will help
Remember: this is a space for everyone. Design with kindness, care, and creativity.
Teach a Lesson – You’re the Teacher!
This activity encourages students to take ownership of their learning and build confidence by teaching others. Guide them in structuring their mini-lesson with a clear beginning, middle, and end. Encourage the use of visual aids, role-play, or storytelling to help explain the meaning and history of the idiom “fly off the handle.”
Support peer-teaching opportunities across classes or small groups, where students can share their lessons with younger children or classmates. This task strengthens empathy, creativity, and communication—essential leadership skills that last a lifetime.
Focus: Leadership & Teaching Skills
Now it’s your turn to teach! Create a fun mini-lesson to explain the idiom “fly off the handle” to a younger child or a classmate. You can use a drawing, a skit, a puppet show, or even design a mini-game to bring your explanation to life.
Make sure your lesson includes:
What the idiom means
Where it came from (the 1800s and those dangerous loose axe heads!)
A fun or realistic example of it being used
Teaching someone else is one of the best ways to understand something deeply—so get creative, enjoy yourself, and let your lesson shine like a freshly sharpened axe in the morning sun!
Art Therapy – Life in the 1800s
This activity invites children to step into the world of the 1800s through careful observation and creative expression. Provide a detailed black-and-white scene from a forest workshop, a lumber yard, or a rural homestead—somewhere a person might have once used a wooden-handled axe.
Allow time for quiet reflection, encouraging children to focus on the small details: the tools, the setting, the mood of the moment. Use this as a peaceful pause in the week’s learning—an opportunity to practise mindfulness, imagine life in the past, and consider how people managed their emotions in challenging environments. This task fosters calm, focus, and empathy—while offering a deeper understanding of where the idiom “fly off the handle” came from.
Focus: Quiet Reflection
Take a moment to explore this peaceful scene showing everyday life in the 1800s—when people used hand tools like axes with wooden handles to build homes, cut firewood, and work the land.
What details stand out to you? What might the people in the image be doing? Why do you think life looked like this back then? Can you spot anything that shows patience, effort, or the challenges of managing strong emotions?
Once you’ve studied the picture carefully, use the black-and-white template to create your own version. Find a quiet, calm place—perhaps in the library—and settle in with some soft music if you like. Let this be your moment to slow down, breathe deeply, and travel back in time with your imagination.
As you bring the scene to life with colour, reflect on how you feel—focused, calm, or thoughtful. Let your thoughts wander through the forest paths, the wooden cabins, and the quiet spaces where people once worked hard and stayed steady—so they didn’t fly off the handle.
Quiz and Certificate
Click here to complete a simple quiz on life in the 1800s and the origins of the idiom “Fly off the Handle.”
Put your knowledge to the test—what have you learned about wooden axes, sudden anger, and how everyday tools shaped the language we still use today?
Complete the quiz, and once you’ve finished, you’ll receive your official certificate to celebrate your journey into the past!