The Naughty Boy: NCERT Class 4 English Poem (Marigold Unit 9)

etmantra16 Mar 20217 min read

This funny poem has a bouncy rhythm that children enjoy saying aloud. It also carries a gentle surprise: going far away does not always mean finding something new.

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From the NCERT English book Marigold for Class 4, unit 9. NCERT’s newer Class 4 book is Santoor, but many schools still teach Marigold.

Watch: The Naughty Boy

Play the video three or four times. The first time, just listen. Then point at the pictures, and from the third time, say the lines along with the video. Short, repeated listening is how CALP builds a child’s English.

What your child learns

Describing words: hard, merry, red, weighty, wooden
An old way of counting: fourscore means eighty
Saying a poem with rhythm
Noticing what is the same in different places

What the poem is about

The poem is about a naughty boy who runs away to Scotland to see the people there. He expects things to be different.

But he finds that everything is just as it was in England. The ground is just as hard, songs are just as merry, cherries are just as red and doors are just as wooden. So the boy stands still in his shoes and wonders. The feeling is playful, with a small lesson that people and places are often more alike than we think.

New words, with Hindi meanings

naughty: behaving badly in a playful way; not obeying (हिंदी: शरारती)
ran away: left home without telling anyone (हिंदी: भाग गया)
ground: the earth we walk on (हिंदी: ज़मीन)
merry: happy and cheerful (हिंदी: खुशनुमा)
lead: a very heavy grey metal (said “led”) (हिंदी: सीसा)
weighty: heavy (हिंदी: भारी)
fourscore: an old way of saying eighty (four times twenty) (हिंदी: अस्सी)
wondered: thought about something with surprise (हिंदी: हैरान हुआ)

Talk about it

Ask these aloud after reading or watching. Let your child answer in English if they can, or mix in their home language. Both help.

Where did the naughty boy run away to?
What did he find when he got there?
What did the boy do at the end of the poem?
If you went to a new place, what would you expect to be different from home?

Answers for parents

He ran away to Scotland, to see the people there.
He found that everything was the same as in England: the ground as hard, cherries as red, doors as wooden.
He stood still in his shoes and wondered.
For example: If I went to Kerala, I would expect the food and the language to be different.

Grammar corner: Describing words (adjectives)

Describing words tell us more about a thing: how it looks, feels or seems. The boy notices that the ground is hard, cherries are red and doors are wooden, just like at home.

The mango from Nani's tree was sweet and yellow.
Dadaji sang a merry song at the wedding.
Our old wooden door creaks when it opens.

Practice at home

Choose the meaning of 'merry': sad / happy / heavy
Fill in the blank: Fourscore is the same as ___.
Make a sentence with the word 'wooden'.

Answers: 1. happy · 2. eighty · 3. For example: My grandfather made me a wooden toy horse.

Try this

Play a “same or different” game. Name a thing, such as the sky, a mango, rain or a dog, and ask your child whether it would be the same or different in another city or country. Then let your child stand still “in their shoes” and act out the boy wondering, with a puzzled face, while you say the last lines of the poem together.

Tip for parents

Ask in Hindi, “अगर तुम किसी दूसरे शहर जाओ, तो क्या वहाँ भी आसमान नीला होगा?” Let your child answer in Hindi, then help them say it in English: “The sky is blue there too.” Mixing the two languages while thinking aloud is fine; praise every English sentence they build.

Questions parents ask

What is the poem The Naughty Boy about?

A naughty boy runs away to Scotland to see the people there, but he finds that everything is just the same as in England. He stands still and wonders.

What does 'fourscore' mean in The Naughty Boy?

Fourscore is an old way of saying eighty. A score is twenty, so four score is four times twenty.

Which NCERT book is The Naughty Boy from?

The Naughty Boy is Unit 9 of Marigold, NCERT's older English book for Class 4. The newer NCERT English books are Mridang for Class 1–2 and Santoor for Class 3–5.

Learn every Class 4 chapter with CALP

Every chapter of Santoor, NCERT’s new book, with notes in English and Hindi, say-it-aloud practice with a score, grammar, speaking and writing practice. ₹1,299 for the whole year.

See the free lessons and enrol →