Learning to Draw Lyrics
A mother hands over a slate and pencil and asks for a man, a cow, a horse and a tree. The cow comes out with three legs and one horn, so she draws one herself, and the child is soon asking for a house with a gate and a boy flying a kite.
Learning to Draw
Come, here are a slate, and a pencil, and string,
So now sit you down, dear, and draw pretty thing;
A man, and a cow, and a horse, and a tree,
And when you have finish'd, pray show them to me.
What! cannot you do it? Shall I show you how?
Come, give me your pencil, I'll draw you a cow.
You've made the poor creature look very forlorn!
She has but three legs, dear, and only one horn.
Now look, I have drawn you a beautiful cow;
And see, here's a dicky-bird, perch'd on a bough,
And here are some more flying down from above:
There now, is not that very pretty, my love?
O yes, very pretty! now make me some more,
A house with a gate, and a window, and door,
And a little boy flying his kite with a string:
Oh, thank you, mamma, now I'll draw pretty thing.
Printed from https://nurseryrhymes.co/learning-to-draw/
- Type
- Poems for Children
- Tune
- Two voices: a coaxing parent first, then an eager child for the last four lines
- Best for ages
- 3 to 7 years
Hand Motions and Actions
| When you sing | Do this |
|---|---|
| Come, give me your pencil, I'll draw you a cow. | Hold out a hand for the pencil, then draw a cow in the air with one finger. |
| And a little boy flying his kite with a string: | Hold a pretend string up high and tug it as if a kite were flying. |
What Does Learning to Draw Mean?
The poem is a little lesson told as a conversation. The speaker for the first three verses is the child's mamma, who sets out a slate, a pencil and a list of things to draw. A slate was a small, flat board of dark stone, set in a frame, that children drew and wrote on with a slate pencil. The marks wiped off, so mistakes did not matter.
The child's cow does not go well: it looks forlorn, which here means sad and poorly made, because it has only three legs and one horn. Rather than scold, the mother takes the pencil and draws a better cow, then adds dicky-birds (a child's word for little birds) sitting on a bough, which is a branch. The turn comes in the last verse. The child praises the drawing, asks for a house with a gate, a window and a door, and a boy with a kite, and ends by saying the drawing will now be done by the child.
History and Origin
This poem is in Rhymes for the Nursery, a book whose title page names its writers only as the authors of Original Poems. The twenty-third edition, printed in London in 1831 for Harvey and Darton, includes it. Its preface says the rhymes were made for the nursery, so lessons told as small scenes between a mother and a child fit the book.
Learning Activities
- Draw it in order: take paper or a small whiteboard and draw what the mother lists: a man, a cow, a horse and a tree. Let the child choose which comes first.
- Count the mistakes: draw a cow on purpose with three legs and one horn, and ask the child what is missing. Cows are usually drawn with four legs and two horns.
- Your turn, my turn: take turns adding one line each to a picture, as the mother and child do, until there is a house, a gate and a kite.
- Wipe-off slate: a small dry-erase board works like the old slate, and drawings can be rubbed out and started again.