Writing
Funny poems for kids to read aloud
Here are 16 original funny poems for kids to read aloud, about pets, food, school, bedtime and silly creatures. Each one is short, rhymes and has a strong beat, so it works for children ages 4 to 10, for classroom read-alouds and for practicing reading with expression.
Funny poems are one of the easiest ways to get children excited about reading. They are short enough to finish before attention wanders, the rhymes help early readers guess the next word, and the jokes reward kids for listening to the very end. Every poem on this page was written for this site. Most follow a simple pattern in which the second and fourth lines of each stanza rhyme, with a steady da-DUM beat that is easy to clap along to.
Funny animal poems
Animals behaving like people is one of the oldest jokes in children's poetry, and it never stops working. Try giving each animal its own voice when you read.
My dog believes he's people,
so he sits up in a chair.
He wears my brother's baseball cap
and folds his paws with care.
He waits politely, very still,
as still as any cat,
but when we turn to get the salt,
he eats the roast. That's that.
An octopus got dressed one day
and gave a worried shout:
"I've got eight legs but seven socks,
so which leg goes without?"
She checked the drawer. She checked the rug.
She checked the laundry pile.
She found the last sock on her head
and wore it there in style.
The snails lined up to have a race.
The starting whistle blew.
By lunch they'd crawled a single inch.
By supper, almost two.
The crowd went home to get some sleep.
The judges took a nap.
The winner crossed the line next week
and got a gentle clap.
A tall giraffe felt cold one fall
and knitted, row by row,
a scarf so long it reached the ground
and wrapped her toes below.
She wore it to the city park,
where everyone agreed
it was the longest, coziest scarf
a neck could ever need.
Funny food poems
Every child has an opinion about food, which makes these poems good conversation starters. Ask listeners whether they have ever had a broccoli standoff or a last-cookie stakeout of their own.
A forest grew upon my plate,
all green and tall and proud.
I asked my mom if I could go.
She said it's not allowed.
So one by one I chomped the trees,
and, truly, I was wrong:
the forest tasted pretty good.
Don't tell her. Play along.
I tried to twirl spaghetti.
I twirled and twirled and twirled.
I twirled so long and hard, I think
I twirled it round the world.
It wrapped around the mountains.
It looped around the moon.
It landed in my bowl again
that very afternoon.
There's one last cookie in the jar.
I know, because I peeked.
My sister knows. My brother knows.
But nobody has squeaked.
We're watching it. It's watching us.
Nobody makes a sound.
Then Dad walks in and eats it whole
and doesn't look around.
Funny school poems
These three are made for the classroom. They work well at the start of the day, after a long lesson or as a model for students writing poems about their own school.
I really did my homework.
I promise that it's true.
But on the way to school today
it came down with the flu.
It sneezed on all the spelling words.
It coughed up all the math.
So Mom said it should stay at home
and take a nice warm bath.
The pencil sharpener in our class
is hungry every day.
It eats my pencils, one by one,
and grinds them all away.
I fed it yellow, long and new.
It gave me back a stub.
I think it's saving all the rest
to start a pencil club.
For show and tell I brought a rock.
It's gray, and kind of small.
The class all yawned. My teacher sighed.
It didn't help at all.
Then slowly, from one end, a head
poked out. The room went still.
It wasn't, after all, a rock.
It was my turtle, Bill.
Bedtime and home poems
Gentle enough for the end of the day, but still silly. The monster in the second poem is far more afraid of the child than the other way around.
"Just five more minutes," I tell Dad,
"just five, and then I'll sleep."
I've said it seven times so far.
Now Dad is counting sheep.
He's snoring on the bedroom floor.
The cat is snoring too.
I guess I'll tuck them in myself.
That's what the big kids do.
The monster underneath my bed
is scared of me, I think.
He hides back there when I come in
and doesn't sleep a wink.
I asked him, "What is wrong with me?"
He shivered as he said,
"It's not you. It's your stinky socks.
Please throw them out instead."
My little brother asks me why.
Why is the ocean blue?
Why do cats purr? Why can't fish talk?
Why is a shoe a shoe?
I told him, "One more question, and
I'll fly off to the sky."
He thought about it for a while,
then grinned and asked me, "Why?"
Tiny poems for little listeners
Four lines each, for the youngest listeners or for a quick laugh between activities. "Hiccups" is best read with a real (pretend) hiccup at every (hic).
I have the hiccups. (Hic.) I do.
I've had them (hic) since half past two.
I've tried (hic) water. Tried (hic) a fright.
I think I'll (hic) be up all (hic) night.
I blew a bubble, pink and round.
It lifted me right off the ground.
I floated past the garden wall.
(I should have chewed less gum, that's all.)
A worm came up to say hello.
I said hello back. Then
he looked around, said, "Wrong address,"
and wriggled down again.
How to read a poem aloud
- Read it to yourself first so nothing surprises you in front of an audience.
- Find the beat. Most of these poems have a steady da-DUM rhythm; tap it lightly as you read.
- Slow down near the end. The last line usually holds the joke, so pause just before it.
- Use different voices for speakers, like the worried octopus or the shivering monster.
- Act it out: show the hiccups, the twirling, the snoring.
- Let listeners fill in the rhyme. Pause before the last word of a line and let them guess it.
- Read it twice. Children often enjoy a poem more the second time, once they are in on the joke.
Ideas for teachers and parents
- Echo reading: read a line, and the children repeat it with the same expression.
- Rhyme hunt: ask listeners to find every pair of rhyming words in a poem.
- New ending: keep the first stanza and have students write a different second stanza.
- Poem theater: small groups act out one poem while a narrator reads it.
- Copy the pattern: use "The Pencil Sharpener" as a model for a poem about another classroom object that seems to be alive.
- Fluency practice: the poems are short enough to rehearse and perform for a family member.
- Draw it: have children illustrate their favorite line, then read the poem aloud as the pictures are shown.
Write your own funny poem
- Pick something ordinary: a sock, a sandwich, a sneeze, a puddle.
- Ask "What if?" What if the sock had feelings? What if the sandwich ran away?
- Choose a rhyme pattern. Most poems on this page rhyme the second and fourth lines.
- Write four lines, then read them aloud and clap the beat.
- Save a surprise for the last line, the way "The Last Cookie" saves Dad for the end.
Once kids have tried a rhyming poem, they can move on to other playful forms: a bouncy limerick, a name acrostic or a silly clerihew about a famous person. For older writers, our guide to how to write a poem covers the whole process.
Check yourself
1. In "The Pencil Sharpener," which word rhymes with stub?
Answer: club. Stub and club end with the same sound, -ub, so they rhyme.
2. Where do most funny poems save the joke?
Answer: In the last line. A funny poem builds up to a surprise, so the punchline usually comes at the end.
3. When you read a funny poem aloud, what helps the joke land?
Answer: Pausing just before the last line. A short pause builds suspense, so listeners are ready for the surprise.
4. In "Octopus Socks," how many socks does the octopus think she has at first?
Answer: Seven. She has eight legs but counts only seven socks, until she finds the last one on her head.
Pick an answer to start.