Horse of A Different Color

My students had an assignment on idioms today involving animals. Things got interesting.

These were some of the more interesting answers. See if you can figure out what they should have been. Remember these are ninth graders and this is a compilation of the most interesting ones.

1) Bum Bear
2) Happy as a Butterfly
3) Get One's Robin
4) Free as a Convict (OMG!)
5) As the Vulture flies
6) Take a Pony
7) Memory of an Ostritch
8) Flea Market
9) Cricket in one's throat
10) Red Bird
11) Meek as a worm
12) Paper Trout (I still can't figure out where they got this one!)
13) Triceratops got your tongue?
14) Cart before the Elephant
15) Monkey Tears
16) Shark court
17) Snake Wrench
18) Crazy as a Lady Bug
19) Lame Dog
20) Sly as a Teacher (I took offense to that!)

So many of these aren't used anymore so I kind of understand, but it was funny. Then not only did I have to give them the right animals, but explain the idioms. In order, the correct answers are, Steer, Clam, Goat, Bird, Crow, Gander, Elephant, Bull, Frog, Herring, Lamb, Tiger, Cat, Horse, Crocodile, Kangaroo, Monkey, Loon, Duck, Fox. It was a very enlightening lesson, to say the least. My favorite is the paper trout. Oh my, I love Mondays!