Kid-Friendly Metaphors

As a child, you may have heard of phrases that are used occasionally by adults or older kids and wondered what they mean,t because to you it seems like they are quite impossible to be similar. Then those phrases are most likely metaphors. A metaphor example is a figure of speech that is used to make a comparison between two things that are very different from each and it may seem like they having absolutely nothing in common at least at first glance.

They are very similar in a way to another form of a figure of speech, a simile, but unlike a simile, where the two things that are being compared uses either alike or as, whereas a metaphor would use a method that is much more indirect by stating that something is something else. A metaphor can be very expressive but it is also not meant to be taken literally in any manner though it can be a bit tricky to try and understand its true meaning. So we will be giving examples of metaphors that are very simple, simple enough for even children to understand it to a certain degree.

The snow is a white blanket.

This example of a metaphor states that the snow is considered to be a white blanket. The snow cannot be weaved into a blanket however it can become thick enough to cover the whole land from miles on end and when looking at it from a high angle, it would certainly look like a huge blanket one way or another.

The classroom was a zoo.

This metaphoric example is saying that the classroom is a zoo but it can not be since a zoo is a place where people would come just to see the animals up close in a mostly harmless environment while a classroom is a place where young people can learn so that they can be better equipped for the future. What the metaphor means though is that the classroom has similarities to that of a zoo, like the division between the group of friends as well as the level of noise that they generate. Each group can be compared to a group of animals in a zoo. If the classroom was just full of noise and was wild all the time then the metaphor would just say “the classroom was a jungle”.

Her lovely voice was music to his ears.

This statement says that for the boy when he listens to the girl’s voice, it is like listening to music for him. This is not possible since a voice alone does not generate enough sounds to create a form of music especially all the time. This just means that the girl’s voice was so much to the boy’s liking that it is comparable to listening to his favorite music.

Life is a roller coaster.

This example’s literal meaning is that life is pretty much a roller coaster. However, what the speaker is saying is that life is only similar to what one can whenever they decide to ride a roller coaster. It has its ups, it has its downs, it twists and turns sometimes and even in unexpected ways, iit can give you a smooth calm ride before it sends you plunging down the line and screaming for some form of help, it can even be enough to you sick to your core and hurling everything that you have eaten in the last few hours, and it can even make you dizzy as hell and make you regret your life choices, so much so that you never want to ride another roller coaster ever again.

Their home was a prison.

This states that the home of whoever the speaker is referring to is a jail or a correctional facility. This can actually be true since a home can be just about anywhere depending on how the person feels about the place. However, the point that the speaker is trying to get across is that the home of whoever they are talking about, feels like it is a prison, either because they have no freedom in their own home or that there is some sort of problem that has made them feel very uncomfortable and it is enough that other people can see it and they can easily say that their home is a prison.

The sun is a golden ball.

The literal sense of what the speaker means in this metaphor is that, for them, the sun is a ball that is a golden color. However, this can be somewhat correct since the sun is of a spherical shape and whenever we look at it, it is so bright that it shines with such a painful degree of intensity and with a golden hue that it is likened to that of a gold color or sometimes a yellow color just like those found in flags.

He is a shining star.

This example states that the boy is actually a star that shines very brightly. This is something that is impossible in a literal sense since the boy or young man is mostly a human being and not a celestial body that lives outside of the earth’s atmosphere. What the speaker means is that the boy actually has a lot of talents or has one talent that really makes him stand out from everyone else, so much so that nearly everyone is describing him to be a shining star.

So those are just a few kid-friendly examples of metaphors but there are plenty more where that came from. By now you should be able to understand when somebody says something that is similar to the examples that were given above and you can probably classify them as metaphors if they have a similar pattern. You should also now be able to compose your own forms of metaphors and they could be ones that have been used quite often throughout history or you can make new ones by yourself.