Cat lessons and printables for teachers

Printables and worksheets

• Cat fact sheet for kids (grades 2 to 5): one printable page of checked cat facts, from wildcat ancestors to whiskers, with a short reading check and answer key.
• Cat traits worksheet for 3rd grade (NGSS 3-LS3-1): students compare a mother cat and her kittens to find inherited traits and variation. Answer key included.
• Cat adaptations lesson plan (grades 3 to 5, NGSS 4-LS1-1 and 4-LS1-2): whiskers, ears, eyes and taste, with a "sense, brain, response" worksheet and answer key.
• Cat science quiz with answer key (grades 6 to 12): 10 questions on domestication, genetics, senses and nutrition, each answer linked to its source.
• Cat science vocabulary list (grades 3 to 12): kid friendly definitions from adaptation to vibrissae, printable as a word wall or study sheet.

You may print and photocopy these pages for your own classroom and other non commercial teaching. Use your browser's Print button: the print version drops the menus and colors and prints black on white.

Lesson ideas by grade band

Kindergarten to grade 2

• What does a cat need to live? Students sort picture cards (food, water, shelter, toys, sunlight) into "a cat needs this" and "a plant needs this". Key fact: cats are carnivores and must eat food made from animals, while plants make their own food using light. Read more in what cats eat. NGSS K-LS1-1: patterns of what plants and animals need to survive.
• How mother cats help kittens. Read about newborn kittens: their eyes and ears do not open until about two weeks old, and they stay with their mother for at least 8 weeks. Students draw one thing a kitten does to get help and one thing the mother does to help. Read more in kitten care. NGSS 1-LS1-2: behavior of parents and offspring that helps offspring survive.

Grades 3 to 5

• Kittens are like their parents, but not exactly. Use the cat traits worksheet to compare a litter and record shared and different traits. NGSS 3-LS3-1.
• Built to hunt: cat body parts and senses. Follow the cat adaptations lesson plan: whiskers measure gaps, ears pick up very high sounds, and cats cannot taste sugar. NGSS 4-LS1-1 and 4-LS1-2.
• Slow blink science. Read our slow blink article, then discuss how scientists designed two experiments in cats' own homes to test an idea many cat owners already believed. A good, short introduction to fair tests.

Grades 6 to 8

• Cat breeds and artificial selection. Students gather information on how people choose parent cats for traits such as folded ears, and what that means for the cats. Use our breed guide (each breed lists its inherited health risks) and two papers from the research page: Lipinski and colleagues (2008) on where breeds came from, and Gandolfi and colleagues (2016), who linked the Scottish Fold's folded ears and a painful bone and cartilage disease to the same gene variant. Ask students to weigh a desired trait against its welfare cost. NGSS MS-LS4-5.
• Evaluate a claim. Pick a popular cat myth from myths vs facts and have students find and judge the evidence, citing their source with the "Cite this page" box at the bottom of our articles.

Grades 9 to 12

• Why cats ignore sugar: a gene that stopped working. Li and colleagues (2005) found that the cat gene for one half of the sweet taste receptor (Tas1r2) carries a deletion and stop codons, so the receptor cannot form. Students trace how a change in DNA leads to a change in a trait and in behavior. NGSS HS-LS3-1.
• From gene test to vet clinic. Students read the abstract of Longeri and colleagues (2013) on MYBPC3 variants and heart disease (HCM) in cats, then explain how one gene variant can be tested for in breeding cats. Pair with our breed guide and glossary entry on HCM. NGSS HS-LS3-1.
• Where did house cats come from? Compare the genetic evidence in Driscoll and colleagues (2007) with the archaeological burial in Vigne and colleagues (2004) and the ancient DNA study by Ottoni and colleagues (2017). What kind of evidence does each give? All three are on the research page.

Classroom games

Coming soon: a small set of free, original cat games that run in the browser with no sign up and no data collected. They will appear on this page as classroom activity ideas when they launch.

For older students and researchers

Our research page lists the peer reviewed papers behind MeowWise, each with authors, year, journal and DOI, plus a note on which papers have free full text. Every fact article also ends with a Cite this page box in APA, MLA and Chicago style.

Kid safe by design

• No sign ups, logins or student accounts, and no forms on the classroom pages.
• No ads, sponsored content or affiliate links.
• No analytics or tracking cookies on MeowWise at the moment (see our privacy policy).
• All text and drawings are original. No photos of real animals are used on the printables.
• Health topics are general education, not veterinary advice.

Teachers: if you spot an error or would like a resource for a topic we have not covered, use the contact details at the bottom of this page.