Mosaic Maker

http://www.flickr.com/photos/eltpics

 

This mosaic, created via Mosaic Maker, includes pictures from the Eltpics Idiom set. I deliberately chose pictures other than Visual Idioms because you might want to use something new to practise or revise the old. Once students have learned a bunch of idioms with your own photos, you can chose different images representing the same idioms. You can play guessing activities, memory games, get Ss compare and describe the pictures, etc.

Visual Idioms & interactive whiteboards

www.visual-idioms.com

One of the best and easiest ways to work with photos and images in the classroom is using interactive whiteboards. You don't have to print anything out, you can prepare your materials in advance, and the students can see the presented material well. As will be shown below, an interactive whiteboard can perform many useful functions.
Apart from presenting idioms, you can do a lot of revision activities, such as guessing and vocabulary games. Using interactive whiteboards appeals to kinaesthetic type learners, who like to move and touch things, as well as auditory and visual ones.

Prepare a file with photos representing English idioms.

1. When presenting an idiom, you can display the picture first and then you can handwrite hints on the board so that the students get the information bit by bit. You can move the hints all over the board and label the parts of the picture with words you need. Later, you can change your handwritten notes into digital text and store it.
2. You can also use the highlighting tool and highlight all the parts in the picture you need. So, for example, you can highlight clouds and lining in an image representing the idiom 'Every cloud has a silver lining'. This is something you can't do with photos (you don't want to draw over your coloured copies because they are expensive), and you can't handwrite on a normal screen.
3. While being presented new idioms, the students can go on the Internet via the interactive whiteboard to look up words or information they need, and then quickly come back to the original image.   
4. Display an image at a time full screen and shade it (cover it all). Then reveal the picture bit by bit by pulling the imaginary screen down (or from the side). The first students to guess the idiom score a point. This tool is helpful when you want to show your students only one part of the screen.
5. You can write an idiom (or just single words) on the board, turn it around, or flip it so that it's backwards and upside down, and your students play a guessing vocabulary game. You can also make it very small, so that it's almost invisible at first, and then enlarge it gradually. The first student to see it wins.
6. Alternatively, you can use the spotlight tool, which makes a part of your picture visible. You can make the spotlight shape as big or small as you wish and you can move it around the screen. Thus your students only focus on one part of the board. This can be turned into a guessing game as well.
7. For the opposite effect, use shapes to can create a little gap-fill activity; show the image and/or the text and cover certain words with the chosen shape.

If you are the visual or auditory learning type, go to http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jIHg3F3C56I  for a nice tutorial on using interactive whiteboards. And you can learn best by using the interactive whiteboard yourself.

Snowball fight

www.visual-idioms.com

Give your students a blank piece of paper of an A4 size. Ask them to write down five idioms on the paper. Get them to stand up and crumple the paper into a 'snowball'. The students start a snowball fight - they throw the balls at each other. After a minute, stop them and ask them to pick up one ball from the floor and unwrap it. They sit down and work in pairs: they discuss the meaning of each idiom in English. They can also make example sentences and translate the idioms, if possible.

YouTube Video Presentation

visual-idioms.com

Your students can make a YouTube video presentation such as this one: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eD_psZXyCSs
With the notes switched on, the presentation can be used for revision, and when you switch the notes off, the idioms have to be retrieved from memory. When making the presentation, students can add their favourite idioms, images and music and make their presentation stand out with various gadgets.

Photo Calendars

http://www.visual-idioms.com/

Your students can make their own photo calendars. They can make calendars for each other,  for friends/ family, or to decorate the classroom. They choose 12 idioms or proverbs  as mottos (one for each month). They should have positive connotations (Everything's coming up roses, Every cloud has a silver lining, You are my ray of sunshine, I'm on cloud nine, etc.). This is the most important part of the process: students have to go through all the idioms they know and mentally sort them out to find those that they need.
This is a site where your students can create free photo calendars http://www.calendarlabs.com/photo-calendar.php.and and print them out.

Another great tool is Pho.to which offers a number of online services for photo editing, photo fun and sharing.

Silent movie

http://www.visual-idioms.com/

Your students will make a short silent movie clip (1-2 minutes). They can use their mobile phones or video cameras. Ask the students to choose an idiom they'd like to make into a clip (point out that it should be a silent scene). It's fun if they can talk their family members or friends into acting the scenes for them. They post you the clips, you store them and you can later use them for various activities, such as a silent movie festival activity: the students watch the clips and vote for the best ones, which are 'awarded'.

One chapter each

http://www.visual-idioms.com/

Your students are going to write a book. You don't know what it's going to be about until it's finished. This will be a long-term project; it will probably last a couple of weeks or months, depending on the number of students in your class. Each student will write one chapter. Ask one volunteer to start (it might be advantageous to be the first one but it may also be challenging). Give him or her one week to produce the first chapter. Every Monday, for example, the book will be 'handed over' to the next student who has to continue the story. The students should read the book all along the line - not only when it's their turn to write. They can discuss they book, suggest how to go on and what to improve and change next time (according to constructivists, students gain greater agency to create their own knowledge when learning and working with peers). Encourage your students to use as many idioms as possible when writing. Each chapter should be of approximately the same length (1-2 A4 pages). All chapters should be illustrated with images and the titles should also be 'idiomatic'. The last student will have to come up with a good ending of the book. Finally, you can print out the book, share it with other classes, your colleagues, on Facebook, etc.