NCERT Solutions for Class 6th English Chapter 3 What a Bird Thought — Let us discuss

Book page 87 Updated on2026-09-19

Q1.

Read the poem again. Identify the main idea of each stanza. There are two extra sentences given. 1. The bird steps out into the world. 2. The bird lived happily in a small world. 3. The bird becomes blind due to leaves. 4. The bird flies away as an adult. 5. The bird is unhappy with the straw nest. 6. The bird lived in a cosy nest with its mother.

Answer

Write the stanza number in the box beside each sentence, and leave the two extra ones empty.

Sentence	Box	Why
1. The bird steps out into the world.	Stanza 3	“One day, I fluttered from my nest, / To see what I could find.”
2. The bird lived happily in a small world.	Stanza 1	“I lived first in a little house, / And lived there very well.”
3. The bird becomes blind due to leaves.	— (extra)	The bird was never blind. It only says “I have been very blind”, meaning it had not understood.
4. The bird flies away as an adult.	Stanza 4	“At length I flew beyond the tree, / Quite fit for grown-up labours.”
5. The bird is unhappy with the straw nest.	— (extra)	The opposite is true: “Nor needed any other.”
6. The bird lived in a cosy nest with its mother.	Stanza 2	“I lived next in a little nest… And nestled by my mother.”

How to spot the extra sentences: Both of them say something the poem never says. Sentence 3 turns a figure of speech into a fact, and sentence 5 turns contentment into complaint. Always check the wrong options against the actual lines.

Q2.

Look at the pictures 1–4 and write the matching line from the poem for each. (1. an egg 2. a chick in a nest with its mother 3. a bird sitting on a leafy branch 4. a bird flying away from the tree)

The four pictures on page 87, redrawn.

Answer

Picture	What it shows	Matching line from the poem
1.	A pale, round egg	“I lived first in a little house … And made of pale, blue shell.”
2.	A chick in a nest with the mother bird	“I lived next in a little nest … And nestled by my mother.”
3.	A young bird sitting on a leafy branch	“One day, I fluttered from my nest … I said the world is made of leaves.”
4.	A grown bird flying away from the tree	“At length I flew beyond the tree, / Quite fit for grown-up labours.”

Tip: The four pictures are simply the four stanzas in order. Once you see that, the matching takes ten seconds — picture 1 is stanza 1, picture 2 is stanza 2, and so on.

Q3.

Answer with a word from the poem: What was the shape of the bird's first house? _ O _ _ _

Answer

ROUND

Stanza 1 says: “I thought the world was small and round, / And made of pale, blue shell.” The bird's first house was its egg, and an egg is round.

Q4.

Answer with a word from the poem: What was the bird's second nest made of? _ _ R _ _

Answer

STRAW

Stanza 2 says: “I thought the world was made of straw, / And nestled by my mother.” The nest was built of dry straw, so that is all the chick could see around it.

Q5.

Answer with a word from the poem: What did the bird see when it came out of its nest? L _ _ _ E _

Answer

LEAVES

Stanza 3 says: “I said the world is made of leaves.” The moment it stepped out of the nest, the branches of the tree filled its whole view.

Q6.

Answer with a word from the poem: What did the bird do at the end? _ _ _ W

Answer

FLEW

Stanza 4 says: “At length I flew beyond the tree, / Quite fit for grown-up labours.” Flying beyond the tree is the last and biggest step of its life.

Tip for such puzzles: Count the dashes first. Four dashes ending in W, and an action done at the end of the poem — flew is the only word that fits both.

Q7.

Now, recite the poem aloud along with your teacher and classmates.

Answer

Recite it as the bird's own story, and let your voice grow as the bird's world grows.

Stanza 1 — soft and small, as if you are inside a shell.
Stanza 2 — warm and sleepy; give a gentle stress to nestled and mother.
Stanza 3 — quick and excited on “One day, I fluttered”, then slow and thoughtful on “I have been very blind.”
Stanza 4 — loud, open and confident, and then puzzled on the last two lines.

Where to pause: Stop very slightly at the end of each line and take a proper breath at the comma before the last line of every stanza. Bring out the rhyming pairs — well/shell, other/mother, find/blind, labours/neighbours — by touching them lightly, not shouting them.

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