What is the moral of The Tortoise and the Hare?

What that actually means

The hare does not lose because he is slow. He loses because he stops. That is a more useful lesson than it first appears: most things are not won by the fastest person but by the one who is still going. Children hear this fable as being about a slow animal beating a fast one, but it is really about the difference between having an advantage and using it.

What happens in the story

A hare laughs at a tortoise for being slow, so the tortoise challenges him to a race. The hare is so far ahead that he lies down for a nap, and wakes up to find the tortoise has already finished.

Questions to ask afterwards

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

1. Why do you think the hare decided to have a nap?
2. The tortoise knew he was slower. Why race at all?
3. Have you ever kept going at something that took a very long time?
4. Was the hare unkind, or just silly?
5. What would you have said to the hare when he woke up?