Throughout the ages, cats have been a frequent theme in poetry. Their grace and beauty and, sometimes, the curious characteristics very peculiar to cats have never ceased to inspire poets. T.S. Elliot wrote “The Song of the Jellicles” in 1937, when cats freely roamed the streets and before people began working toward reducing the number of street, or community, or feral, cats through humane measures such as Trap-Neuter-Return.

Your students might enjoy listening to “The Song of the Jellicles,” or parts of this poem, about cats who come out at night, and some of your older students and more advanced readers might want to read the poem on their own. After you read the poem aloud and answer your students’ questions about some of the language in the poem, ask your students to write or talk about their reactions and their feelings. You may also ask your students to discuss what they have learned about cats and their habits from the poem and why it is better for cats to have safe indoor homes and to be kept indoors, especially at night.

The Song of the Jellicles

Jellicle Cats come out tonight,
Jellicle Cats come one come all:
The Jellicle Moon is shining bright—
Jellicles come to the Jellicle Ball.

Jellicle Cats are black and white,
Jellicle Cats are rather small;
Jellicle Cats are merry and bright,
And pleasant to hear when they caterwaul.
Jellicle Cats have cheerful faces,
Jellicle Cats have bright black eyes;
They like to practise their airs and graces
And wait for the Jellicle Moon to rise.

Jellicle Cats develop slowly,
Jellicle Cats are not too big;
Jellicle Cats are roly-poly,
They know how to dance a gavotte and a jig.
Until the Jellicle Moon appears
They make their toilette and take their repose:
Jellicles wash behind their ears,
Jellicles dry between their toes.

Jellicle Cats are white and black,
Jellicle Cats are of moderate size;
Jellicles jump like a jumping-jack,
Jellicle Cats have moonlit eyes.
They’re quiet enough in the morning hours,
They’re quiet enough in the afternoon,
Reserving their terpsichorean powers
To dance by the light of the Jellicle Moon.

Jellicle Cats are black and white,
Jellicle Cats (as I said) are small;
If it happens to be a stormy night
They will practise a caper or two in the hall.
If it happens the sun is shining bright
You would say they had nothing to do at all:
They are resting and saving themselves to be right
For the Jellicle Moon and the Jellicle Ball.

T.S. Elliot

Animals Among Us: Living with Suburban Wildlife, by Fran Hodgkins is a classic study about people and wild animals and how they can best share their common space. Margery Facklam writes: “Hodgkins tells how suburbs have taken over over animal habitats, but even more important, she describes ways in which people and animals can share the same territory.”

You can read the following selection about coyotes aloud to your students. Older students and more advanced readers might enjoy reading the selection on their own. When you (or your students) have finished reading the selection and you have answered their questions, ask your students what they have learned about coyotes living in an urban or suburban environment—at what time of day or night they forage, in which places they forage, and the kinds of food they eat. Ask them what kinds of humane measures they think people can take to make it less inviting for coyotes to visit their yards and other parts of their town.

The Coyote

From Animals Among Us: Living with Suburban Wildlife
by Fran Hodgkins

The coyote and his mate are the newest arrivals to this area, and the smaller creatures—foxes, cats, opposums, and others—quickly learned to give them a wide berth. Although in the wilderness he’d be vulnerable to larger predators like wolves and cougars, in this suburban wilderness he’s the top dog.

The coyote strides through the yard and by the compost heap. He pauses to sniff and notes the vixen’s passing, but he doesn’t pursue her. Easier prey, such as a mouse or a squirrel, or even a bowl of dog food left on a porch, is more on his mind today.

The coyote walks around the front of the house and climbs the steps to the porch. He sniffs around, but there is no food here. He trots back down the steps and up the street. Over the course of his patrol, the coyote will cover the entire town. The traffic along this road doesn’t disturb him, and the few drivers who pass take no notice of him—as they whiz by, they think he’s just another dog.

The coyote turns left and trots down an embankment into the playground next to the elementary school. From past experience, he knows this is a good spot to find misplaced lunches. His nose is sharp and leads him to a brown paper bag. He quickly rips through the bag and the plasticwrap and devours the baloney and cheese sandwich inside. For good measure, he eats the package of cookies too. The noon bell rings at the school; someone inside will soon discover his lunch is missing.

Licking his lips, the coyote trots away from the school, across the playground and up onto the eighth fairway of the country club’s golf course. The smell of grapes hangs heavily in the air, although there aren’t any vines for miles. The country club sprays the grape smell as a goose repellent. It works: the geese stay on the high school playing field and avoid the golf course.

The coyote isn’t bothered by the grape odor, though, and keeps moving. He checks along all the edges of the fairways, snapping at mice and chipmunks. Today they’re all too quick for him, but he isn’t trying too hard, either; after all, he’s already had a sandwich, and the day is just beginning.

A familiar scent reaches his nose and he trots faster. His mate appears over the top of the hill where the putting green is. She’s caught a couple of voles in the rough, but is still hungry.

Click here to download the reading “Facts About Animals.”

Click here to download the worksheet “Help a Lost Pet Find His Home.”

• 1. Create an urban wildlife scene in papier mache. Your younger students can create raccoons, opossums, cats, bats, squirrels, trees, bushes, and so on, and place them in a backyard scene. Designate a place in the classroom to reserve as your wildlife sanctuary and include the animals in their natural environment.
• 2. Have your younger students create raccoon masks and play foraging games outside. This would be a good idea for a PE activity or a field trip to a wooded area. Your students can collect nuts or berries and pretend to be raccoons. Remind them that they are foragers!
• 3. Create a veterinary story play. Divide the class into groups of four and have each group brainstorm a story about an injured animal. Ask the students to write, dictate, or draw their ideas for their story plays. Each student in the group should have a role to play in the story, including the hurt animal, narrator, animal control officer, veterinarian or wildlife rehabilitator, child, or parent. Have the students present their plays to the whole class on subsequent days.
• 4. Have your students create a science journal. Suggest to your students that they go outside with their families or their parents for several afternoons and nights in a row, with their family—students should always be accompanied by at least one adult. Tell the students to take a flashlight and describe in journal entries, one for each afternoon and nightly excursion, what they see. Did they see any animals? Any insects? Which ones? Where did they find each animal? What was the animal doing? Did they see the same kinds of animals or different kinds of animals on each excursion?
• 5. Take a trip to the library with your students or ask them to do research on the Internet to learn more about some of the animals they saw during their afternoon and nightly walks. You can divide your class into several groups and assign a different animal to each group. Ask each group to report to the class what they have learned about their assigned animal. Suggest that the groups describe the animal (size and what it looks like) as well as classify the animal as diurnal or nocturnal and discuss the animal’s habitat and food intake.

Note: A good starting point for basic information about the animals they might have seen is the Mow Wow Animals reading “Facts About Animals,” which describes a variety of animals around the world. You may want to print a copy as classroom reference material.

Click here to download the reading “Facts About Animals.”

• 6. Ask your students to describe their backyards. If your students live in apartments, they can describe the garden in front or in back of their apartment building or a yard at the home of a friend or relative. Which animals and insects live in that backyard? Which animals or insects eat other animals or other insects? Which animals or insects do they eat? Ask your students to make a list of those animals and insects and the ways in which they are useful in that habitat.
• 7. Turn the backyard or schoolyard into a wildlife sanctuary. Doing something as simple as installing bird feeders and birdbaths can provide food and water for birds. Planter boxes with flowers can attract and provide food for butterflies. A wildlife sanctuary needs to have a place for wild animals to get food, water, and shelter, and a place to raise their young. Some people hesitate to create wildlife sanctuaries near their homes because they don’t want to attract unwanted guests. The truth is that these wild animals live side by side with us anyway, so we should help them be safe and healthy. It’s fun too. Nature author Fran Hodgkins (Animals Among Us: Living with Suburban Wildlife, page 108) has said, “We’re part of nature, and we are a very special part of it because we can choose to help our fellow species in ways they can’t even imagine.” Ask your students if they have ever done anything special to help a wild animal.
• 8. Have your students research a list of five to ten community or national agencies that are responsible for the well being of urban wildlife (there are many listed on the Web). Your students can look in the phone book, do research online, and visit local agencies with their parents. Ask your students to turn in a list of the agencies, along with each agency’s mission statement to share with the class, or the whole school. The goal is to make your students aware of agencies that offer programs and help for the urban wildlife with which we share our communities.

  An example of a mission statement is this one from Palo Alto Humane Society: The mission of the Palo Alto Humane Society is to alleviate the suffering of animals, increase public sensitivity to animal issues, and elevate the status of animals in our society through innovative programs in intervention, education, and advocacy.

  You can ask your students to compare the mission statements—what do they have in common and in which ways are they different? Point out that the mission and programs of each agency may vary according to the needs of each community.

• 9. If we injure a wild animal (as in a car accident), it is our responsibility to get the animal help. Ask your students to do research about which agencies in their community are responsible for helping injured or sick animals. This research can be done as a homework assignment, with the students calling or meeting with a representative of an agency (animal control, humane society/SPCA) and conducting an interview. Interview questions can include: Who do I need to call if I see an animal hurt in the street? Who do I call if there is a wild animal acting strangely in my backyard? What kinds of programs do you have for kids to help wild animals? What can we do at school to help wild animals and make our community aware of urban wildlife and humane ways to coexist with that urban wildlife?
• 10. Invite a representative from the local animal control agency or wildlife agency to visit your classroom, or alternatively, plan a class trip to that agency. If the agency has a Web site, ask your students to visit that site to do research about the agency. Then have your students work in small groups to make a list of the questions they will ask during the visit. Have the groups report to the entire class, and based on the questions they have identified, make up a final list of questions to be asked during the visit.
• 11. Ask your students if they have ever lost a pet. Why was the pet lost? What happened to this pet? Was he found? What would your students do if they found a pet wandering in the streets? Why are some pets abandoned? What happens to these pets?

Note: Students can use the worksheet “Help a Lost Pet Find His Home” to help them answer these questions. You may want to follow up with the exercise on this worksheet.

Click here to download the worksheet “Help a Lost Pet Find His Home.”

• 12. Ask your students if they are aware that in most communities there many homeless cats living on the streets. Where do they see homeless cats? At what time of day do they notice the cats? Tell the students that homeless cats are all around us—in backyards, in parks, on the grounds of companies, behind restaurants, and any other place where cats feel safe and have access to a source of food—and there are an estimated 70 million homeless cats in the United States. These cats are called “community cats” because they do not have a home. Most community cats are either abandoned pets or the offspring (kittens and older cats) of those abandoned pets. The second and later generations of cats having no contact with humans are no longer tame; they are feral. Stress that kittens younger than three months old can be tamed to become people’s pets. Recently abandoned cats, as well, will usually continue to be tame and can be rehomed. Ask your students to do research about groups (rescue groups in their own community and on a national level groups such as Alley Cat Allies) that work toward helping these cats. Tell them to investigate “trap, neuter, return,” or TNR, as a solution to the problem of homeless feral cats and to explain how TNR works. Ask why the N in TNR—neuter (or spay)—is such an important part of TNR.
• 13. Invite a representative from a local cat rescue organization to visit your classroom to talk about the work of the group. Before the visit, ask the students to search for the organization’s Web site to learn more about its work and in small groups compile a list of questions for the speaker. Have the groups report to the entire class, and based on the questions they have identified, make up a final list of questions to be asked during the visit.

Note: It’s a good idea for students to be aware of TNR and how it works before the scheduled class visit.

Click here to download  Unit Glossary. These words can help your students understand the lesson.

Click here to download a worksheet in which your students can complete partially spelled glossary words after reviewing the definitions of these words in class.

Click here to download a student worksheet containing questions about “Night Visitors in the Backyard.”