What is the moral of The Ant and the Grasshopper?

What that actually means

That is the moral the fable has carried for two thousand years, and it is a true one. It is also not all of it. People have argued about the ant since at least 1692, when an English edition printed the lesson about hard work and then added that the ant did ill to refuse a charity. La Fontaine, who put this fable first in his book in 1668, declined to give it a moral at all. Two things are true here at once. The story does not choose between them, and neither will we.

What happens in the story

A grasshopper sings all summer from the top of a dry stalk while the ants below him carry grain into a bank, one piece at a time. Then the field goes grey, the frost comes, and he knocks on their door. The ant asks him what he was doing all summer. He tells her the truth.

Questions to ask afterwards

The lesson lands better when a child works it out themselves.

1. The ant had enough for herself and her nest. Did she owe the grasshopper anything?
2. The grasshopper says he would pay her back. What could he actually have paid her with?
3. Was the grasshopper lazy, or was he just doing something different from the ants?
4. The young ant asks a question and gets an answer about counting. Do you think that answer satisfied her?
5. If you had opened the door instead of the ant, what would you have done, and what would it have cost you?