Burn up/ burn down, break in/ break out/ break even, etc.

I've finally gotten around to working on MY lesson plans for my first Ukraine trip. I've basically finished writing everyone else's, and yesterday, I started working on mine. Since I'll be teaching an advanced class, my lessons will include more intensive vocabulary, slang, and idioms. I taught some idioms last year, and they loved it! Students who have studied English for a while really love to practice speaking with native English-speakers, and they especially love to learn the less-formal ways of speaking English.

Part of my advanced class last year

Idiom: an expression in the usage of a language that has a meaning that cannot be derived from the conjoined meaning of its elements.

I've been generating all kinds of idioms that we use and have been very proud of myself. The only thing is...I realized that I have to explain what all of them mean. It sounds easy, right? Not so much. Although they speak English fairly well, they are still from a completely different culture and a language that may or may not have complimentary syntactical elements. Try explaining the difference in these, using fairly basic English words and NOT using another idiom in the definition:

1. Burn up
2. Burn down
3. Break in
4. Break out
5. Break even
6. Catch a cold
7. Catch on
8. Catch on fire

I'm taking suggested definitions from anyone who is feeling word-smithy...