Fables The Lion and The Mouse Worksheet

A fable is a very short story that ends with a lesson, and that ending is exactly what makes fables such useful practice for young readers. Because the whole plot fits on one page, a second grader can hold every event in mind at once, retell it in order, and then take the harder step the standards actually ask for: saying what the story means. This Fables The Lion and The Mouse Worksheet uses Aesop’s best-known example, an original retelling written at a second-grade reading level, to teach recounting and central message together.

This 2nd grade reading comprehension worksheet opens with a full-colour scene of the mouse gnawing through the rope while the lion watches, then gives students a 158-word version of the fable set in type sized for the grade. The question page follows on a fresh sheet so the reader has to return to the text rather than answer from the picture. Four fill-in-the-bubble questions walk through the order of events and the reason the lion set the mouse free, and a final written item asks the child to state the lesson in their own words. Read it aloud together the first time, then let students work the questions independently.

What’s Included

• 1 print-ready PDF worksheet (3 pages)
• An original 2nd-grade retelling of The Lion and the Mouse
• 4 multiple-choice comprehension questions
• 1 short written response on the fable’s lesson
• Answer key

Three things make this Fables The Lion and The Mouse Worksheet work in a second-grade classroom. First, the passage is measured, not guessed: it sits inside the grade’s readability band, so the reading demand matches what a state assessment will ask. Second, the questions climb rather than repeat, moving from what happened first, to why a character acted, to what the whole fable means. Third, the written item has no single wording to memorise, so it shows you what a child actually understood instead of what they copied off the page.

Read the fable twice before writing anything, once for the story and once for the lesson, and let students act it out with two volunteers while the rest of the class calls out the order of events. Pair it with another fable and ask which lesson the two share. At home, invite a child to retell the story at dinner using only three sentences, then ask what advice the lion would give a friend. Older students can write a new ending in which the lion repays the favour a second time, and a quick classroom chart of characters, setting, problem and lesson turns the same fable into a story-elements lesson.

Related Resources

• Fables The Crow and The Pitcher Worksheet
• Fables The Fox and The Grapes Worksheet
• Retelling A Story Worksheet
• Story Elements Song (Have Fun Teaching)