What a Bird Thought: NCERT Class 6 English Poem (Poorvi)

etmantra3 Nov 20266 min read

What does the world look like when you have only seen the inside of an egg? In this short poem, a bird tells us how its idea of the world kept changing as it grew. Children enjoy the bird's honest surprise, and the poem gently shows that there is always more to learn.

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From NCERT’s new English book Poorvi for Class 6, unit “Nurturing Nature”. Unit 3.

What your child learns

Words about a bird's life: shell, straw, nestled, fluttered
Describing words (adjectives) such as pale, round, little and wooden
Rhyming words at the ends of lines: well and shell, find and blind
Reciting a four-stanza poem aloud with feeling

What the poem is about

The poem is told by a bird. First it lives inside an egg and thinks the whole world is small, round and made of pale blue shell. Next it lives in a nest with its mother and thinks the world is made of straw. One day it flutters out of the nest, sees the leaves of the tree and decides the world is made of leaves. It feels it has been blind until now.

In the last stanza the bird is grown up and flies beyond the tree. Now it says it does not know how the world is made, and its neighbours do not know either. The message is simple and wise: as we grow and see more, we understand how big the world is, and we stop thinking we know everything. The poem is by an unknown poet (Anonymous).

New words, with Hindi meanings

pale: light in colour, not dark (हिंदी: हल्का, फीका)
shell: the hard outer cover of an egg (हिंदी: अंडे का खोल)
straw: dry stalks of grass or crops (हिंदी: तिनका, भूसा)
nestled: lay close and warm next to someone (हिंदी: दुबककर बैठा)
fluttered: moved lightly and quickly, flapping the wings (हिंदी: फड़फड़ाया)
blind: not able to see; here, not knowing what is beyond (हिंदी: अंधा, अनजान)
at length: at last, after a long time (हिंदी: आख़िरकार)
beyond: on the far side of something (हिंदी: के पार)
labours: hard work (हिंदी: मेहनत)
neighbours: those who live near us (हिंदी: पड़ोसी)

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.

What did the bird think the world was like when it lived inside the egg?
Why did the bird think the world was made of straw?
Why did the bird say that it had been very blind?
What does the grown-up bird say about the world at the end?
Think of a time when your world became bigger. What new things did you see?

Answers for parents

It thought the world was small and round, and made of pale blue shell.
Its nest was made of straw, and the nest was all it knew. It lived there close to its mother.
When it fluttered out of the nest, it saw the leaves for the first time. It understood that before this it could not see what was outside the nest.
After flying beyond the tree, it says it does not know how the world is made, and neither do its neighbours.
For example: When I went to a new school in a big town, I saw a library, a large playground and children from many places. I learnt that there was much more than my village school.

Grammar corner: Describing words (adjectives)

Describing words tell us more about a naming word: its colour, size, shape or what it is made of. In the poem, words like little, small, round and pale describe the bird's homes. We usually put the describing word just before the naming word, as in 'a little nest'.

The sparrow built a small, round nest in the mango tree.
A brown bird sat on the wooden fence.
The weaver bird made a long, hanging nest with thin grass.

Practice at home

Fill in the blank with a describing word: The baby bird slept in a ___ nest of dry straw.
Find the rhyming word: Which word rhymes with 'nest'? (a) rest (b) next (c) neck
Make a sentence with 'fluttered'.

Answers: 1. Sample answers: warm, small, cosy, little · 2. (a) rest · 3. Sample answer: The butterfly fluttered from one flower to another.

Try this

Play 'My world grows'. One person says, 'When I was a baby, my world was my mother's lap.' The next person adds a bigger world: 'When I was five, my world was my house and street.' Keep going, each time making the world bigger: school, town, country, the sky. Then read the poem aloud together, one stanza each.

Tip for parents

Ask your child in Hindi first: 'अंडे के अंदर चिड़िया को दुनिया कैसी लगी होगी?' Let them answer in Hindi, then help them say the same idea in English, such as 'The world was small and round.' Do this for each stanza, and praise every try, even if Hindi and English words are mixed.

Questions parents ask

What is the poem What a Bird Thought about?

It is about a bird whose idea of the world changes as it grows: first an eggshell, then a straw nest, then the leaves of a tree, and finally the open world beyond. It is in NCERT's new Poorvi book for Class 6, Unit 3 (Nurturing Nature).

What is the message of What a Bird Thought?

As we grow and see more, we learn that the world is bigger than we thought. A wise person accepts that there is always more to learn.

Who wrote What a Bird Thought?

The book gives the poet as Anonymous, which means the name of the poet is not known.

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