Figurative language practice from 160 short, kid-safe sentences

"It's raining cats and dogs" stopped my eight-year-old at the window. He wanted to see one. He is at the age where language starts doing two things at once, and figurative language worksheets are how you make that a skill instead of a confusion.

What the sheet looks like

The figurative language generator draws from a hand-written bank of about 160 short sentences across seven types: similes, metaphors, personification, hyperbole, onomatopoeia, alliteration and idioms. Identify the type prints sentences with the type names to circle. Sort into two boxes separates similes from metaphors. Idiom meanings matches idioms to their plain sense, either with lines or as multiple choice. What is being compared asks for the two things in a simile or metaphor. Write your own gives sentence starters, and mixed review combines everything.

You narrow the types to all seven, similes and metaphors, idioms only, onomatopoeia and alliteration, or personification and hyperbole. Items per page run 6, 8, 10 or 12, and the answer key prints on a second page.

Why it works

• Sentences like "The baby's room is a jungle of toys" are short and about ordinary things, so the child is thinking about the figure of speech, not the vocabulary.
• Naming the two things being compared is the step that makes a metaphor make sense. Circling "metaphor" does not; writing "room" and "jungle" does.
• Idioms matched to plain meanings (under the weather, I feel sick) is the one activity that newer English speakers in a class ask for by name.

Who it suits

Grades 3 to 6. Start third graders on similes and metaphors with identify or sort, and keep the count at 6. Idioms with multiple choice suit grades 3 and 4; personification and hyperbole are more of a fifth-grade distinction. Write your own is the best page in the set for a sixth grader and the hardest for anyone younger. For the grammar underneath, the parts of speech sheet is the companion.

Keep the answer key handy. Hyperbole and metaphor overlap more than you remember.