Before the lesson, create a template for a plain shoe. Use a die-cut machine or create your own pattern and cut out enough shoes for all of the students in your class. Read "The Woman Who Lived in a Shoe" and give students the pre-cut shoes. Provide them with many craft materials such as scraps of paper, markers and glitter to decorate their shoes. Glue a picture of a student on her craft to show her living inside the shoe, similar to the woman in the poem.
The poem does not specify how many children live with the old woman in the shoe. Use this to create a counting math lesson. Make a large shoe out of poster board and glue Velcro squares to the shoe. Create small thumbnail photographs of your class members and glue Velcro squares to them. Read the poem with your students and then, using the Velcro, stick any number of children to the poster. Ask students to count the number of children living in the shoe. Vary the number of children and repeat this activity.
Introduce the concept of rhyming words using "The Woman Who Lived in a Shoe." Write out the words to the poem on a large, lined poster. Write the words that rhyme (like shoe and do) in a different color to make them stand out for students. Explain what rhyming words are, and then ask students to make their own list of rhyming words found around the classroom. Begin this list on your chalkboard and add to it during other areas of academic instruction.
The poem's short nature leaves readers wondering what happens next in the story. Read "The Woman Who Lived in the Shoe" with your students. Discuss what they think might happen next with the old woman and her children. Provide them with lined paper and ask them to write an additional verse to the poem. Invite them to include an illustration of their verse and display these in your classroom.