I Think Mice Are Rather Nice!

I think mice are rather nice.
Their tails are long, their faces small,
They haven’t any chins at all.

If you’re looking for a cute nursery rhyme to teach your smallest students about rhyming pairs, then you simply cannot go past the nursery rhyme “I Think Mice Are Rather Nice”. This simple and very sweet nursery rhyme about these furry little creatures (who sometimes get landed with a bad reputation!) will help develop your students’ phonological awareness as they listen to and recite the poem.

This poster displays the complete rhyme in a child-friendly font, making it accessible for early readers to follow along. It also uses underlining to denote the rhyming pairs, e.g. mice/nice, small/all, white/night.

Use This Nursery Rhyme Poster in Your Classroom

This poster of the nursery rhyme “I Think Mice Are Rather Nice” can be used in multiple ways in your early years classroom. Here are a few suggestions from our teacher team:

• Phoneme Phocus – Choose some rhyming pairs from the poem where different phonemes are used to create the same sound, e.g. ‘ite’ in ‘white’ and ‘ight’ in ‘night’. Use this to start a discussion about the fact that, when writing, sounds can be represented by different combinations of letters.
• Add Some Actions – As a class, brainstorm some simple actions that could be used when reciting the poem. Students could even practise reciting the rhyme with the actions and then perform it for another class.
• Narrative Stimulus – Use the poem as a stimulus for a story about a mouse. This could be based on a central mouse character who gets into mischief running around the house at night.

Download This “I Think Mice Are Rather Nice” Poster

Use the Download button to access the easy-print PDF.

Project the poster on your interactive whiteboard or print it for your classroom display board. If you intend to display the poster, we recommend enlarging it for enhanced readability.

More Nursery Rhyme Activities for Reception

Teach Starter has a wide selection of nursery rhyme activities perfect for young learners! Click below to explore a sample from our library.

teaching resource

Nutty Nursery Rhymes Speaking and Listening Activity

A set of eight nursery rhyme cards which have been modified for a speaking activity.