Reading Lesson Plan · Grades 1–3
The Owl and the Pussycat Activity Worksheet
Read Edward Lear’s The Owl and the Pussycat aloud, then find ten rhyming pairs in the poem and add a rhyme of your own for each. A second page asks students to draw their favorite part and explain the choice. For first through third grade.
Subject
Reading
Grades
Grades 1–3
Skill Focus
Rhyming and Poetry
Lesson Length
30–45 minutes
Lesson Overview
About This Activity
This is an elementary reading lesson built around The Owl and the Pussycat, Edward Lear’s 1871 nonsense poem about an owl and a cat who go to sea in a pea-green boat, buy a ring from a pig, and are married by a turkey. Because the poem was published in 1871 it is in the public domain, so the full text is easy to find and free to read aloud or copy for a class.
The printable is a companion to the poem rather than a reprint of it, so you will need the text to read from. The first page is a rhyming exercise: students find a word in the poem that rhymes with each of ten given words, then supply a rhyme of their own — which is what turns it from a search into word work.
The second page asks students to draw the part of the poem they liked best and then write about why. Lear’s nonsense vocabulary (a runcible spoon, the Bong-Tree) makes the poem a good vehicle for talking about how poets invent words and how pictures carry meaning the words leave out.
Suggested reading level: first through third grade. The original lesson allows two class periods.
How to Use This Lesson
Read The Owl and the Pussycat aloud to the class, or have students read it with a partner. Read it at least twice — once for the story, once for the sound.
Talk about what the pictures in your edition show that the words do not, and about Lear’s invented words such as runcible.
Page 1 — for each of the ten given words, students find a word in the poem that rhymes with it, then add a rhyming word of their own.
Page 2 — students draw their favorite part of the poem.
Students then write about why that part was their favorite, using the lined space provided.
Extend the poem: have students write one more verse describing what the owl and the pussycat did next.
Printable Resource
A classroom-ready PDF with everything in one printable resource.
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The Owl and the Pussycat Activity Worksheet
Two printable pages: a ten-item rhyming exercise, then a draw-and-explain response page for the student’s favorite part of the poem.
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