What are some good poems for kids?

Good poems for kids are short, rhyme, and have a beat a child can clap. For ages 3 to 5, try Rain and Happy Thought by Robert Louis Stevenson or Who Has Seen the Wind? by Christina Rossetti. For ages 6 to 8, try My Shadow and The Swing. For ages 9 and 10, try Jabberwocky by Lewis Carroll or Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening by Robert Frost.

What are some short poems for kids?

Short poems for kids include Rain and Happy Thought by Robert Louis Stevenson (four lines and two lines), Who Has Seen the Wind? by Christina Rossetti, Dust of Snow by Robert Frost and The Purple Cow by Gelett Burgess. Each one takes less than a minute to read and is easy to learn by heart.

What are some funny poems for kids?

Classic funny poems for kids include The Owl and the Pussy-cat and the limericks of Edward Lear, The Purple Cow by Gelett Burgess, and How Doth the Little Crocodile and Jabberwocky by Lewis Carroll. For modern funny poems, borrow Where the Sidewalk Ends by Shel Silverstein or The New Kid on the Block by Jack Prelutsky.

What are some famous poems for kids?

Famous poems for kids include My Shadow and The Swing by Robert Louis Stevenson, The Owl and the Pussy-cat by Edward Lear, Wynken, Blynken, and Nod by Eugene Field, Jabberwocky by Lewis Carroll, Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening by Robert Frost, and Twinkle, Twinkle, Little Star, first published by Jane Taylor in 1806 as The Star.

What are rhyming poems for kids?

Rhyming poems for kids repeat the same end sound at the end of lines, such as see and me, or wall and all. Nursery rhymes like Hey Diddle Diddle and Stevenson poems like My Shadow are the easiest place to start, because the rhyme and the beat help a child guess the next word.

How do I help my child memorize a poem?

Pick a poem of four to eight lines, read it aloud once a day for a week, and leave out the last word of each line for your child to fill in. Add hand movements, clap the beat, and let your child recite it to a grandparent or a toy at the end of the week.

Poems for Kids: 25 Short Classics to Read Aloud

Poems for kids are the shortest stories you can share: a swing, a shadow, a cat in a pea-green boat, all in under a minute. Below are 25 short poems for kids, printed in full and sorted by age, with funny poems, famous poems for kids, a winter poem for November, six nursery rhymes, poetry books to borrow, and how to help your child write a first rhyming poem of their own.

Every poem printed in full here was first published in 1930 or earlier, so it is in the US public domain. Newer poets are in the book table at the end.

Why poems are good for kids

Poems are good for kids because rhyme and rhythm train the ear that reading depends on. To read, a child has to hear that "cat" and "hat" share an ending and that words break into sounds. A poem gives that practice in a form children ask to hear again.

Research links rhyme to reading. In a study published in the Journal of Child Language in 1989, Peter Bryant, Lynette Bradley, Morag Maclean and John Crossland followed 64 children from age 3 to age 6. Children who knew more nursery rhymes at 3 later did better in reading and spelling, and the authors tied the link to the children's growing sensitivity to rhyme and to the sounds inside words.

Poems also build memory and confidence: a four-line poem is a whole thing a small child can own. Short rhymes are also good company for sight words for kindergarten, because the same small words come back line after line.

What makes a poem easy for a child

An easy poem for a child has three things: it is short, it rhymes at the end of the line, and it has a steady beat. Stevenson's A Child's Garden of Verses, first published in 1885, is full of poems like that, which is why so many of them appear here.

Short poems for kids ages 3 to 5

Short poems for kids ages 3 to 5 should be four to twelve lines long, with a clear rhyme and a picture your child can see in their head. Read each one twice: once for the sound, once for the meaning.

1. Rain. Four lines, perfect for a wet afternoon by the window.

Rain, Robert Louis Stevenson (1885)
The rain is falling all around,
It falls on field and tree,
It rains on the umbrellas here,
And on the ships at sea.

2. Happy Thought. Two lines, and the easiest poem in this post to learn by heart.

Happy Thought, Robert Louis Stevenson (1885)
The world is so full of a number of things,
I'm sure we should all be as happy as kings.

3. Time to Rise. A good-morning poem with a bird who scolds a sleepy child.

Time to Rise, Robert Louis Stevenson (1885)
A birdie with a yellow bill
Hopped upon my window sill,
Cocked his shining eye and said:
"Ain't you 'shamed, you sleepy-head!"

4. What Is Pink? Christina Rossetti's color poem from Sing-Song, first published in 1872. Ask your child to answer each question before you read the next line.

What Is Pink?, Christina Rossetti (1872)
What is pink? a rose is pink
By the fountain's brink.
What is red? a poppy's red
In its barley bed.
What is blue? the sky is blue
Where the clouds float thro'.
What is white? a swan is white
Sailing in the light.
What is yellow? pears are yellow,
Rich and ripe and mellow.
What is green? the grass is green,
With small flowers between.
What is violet? clouds are violet
In the summer twilight.
What is orange? why, an orange,
Just an orange!

5. Brown and Furry. A caterpillar poem, also from Sing-Song, that ends with a butterfly.

Brown and Furry, Christina Rossetti (1872)
Brown and furry
Caterpillar in a hurry,
Take your walk
To the shady leaf, or stalk,
Or what not,
Which may be the chosen spot.
No toad spy you,
Hovering bird of prey pass by you
Spin and die,
To live again a butterfly.

6. Who Has Seen the Wind? Eight lines that turn an invisible thing into something a child can watch for in the trees.

Who Has Seen the Wind?, Christina Rossetti (1872)
Who has seen the wind?
Neither I nor you:
But when the leaves hang trembling
The wind is passing thro'.

Who has seen the wind?
Neither you nor I:
But when the trees bow down their heads
The wind is passing by.

7. Halfway Down. Milne's stair poem from When We Were Very Young, published in 1924 and in the US public domain since January 1, 2020.

Halfway Down, A. A. Milne (1924)
Halfway down the stairs
Is a stair
Where I sit.
There isn't any
Other stair
Quite like
It.
I'm not at the bottom,
I'm not at the top;
So this is the stair
Where
I always
Stop.

Halfway up the stairs
Isn't up,
And isn't down.
It isn't in the nursery,
It isn't in the town.
And all sorts of funny thoughts
Run round my head:
"It isn't really
Anywhere!
It's somewhere else
Instead!"

Nursery rhymes to know by heart

Nursery rhymes are the first poems most children hear, and they make the best warm-up for everything else in this post. All six below are traditional or, in one case, from 1806. Twinkle, Twinkle, Little Star began as The Star by Jane Taylor, printed in Rhymes for the Nursery in 1806.

Nursery rhyme	Words	First known printing
Twinkle, Twinkle, Little Star	Twinkle, twinkle, little star, / How I wonder what you are! / Up above the world so high, / Like a diamond in the sky.	1806, Jane Taylor
Hey Diddle Diddle	Hey diddle diddle, / The cat and the fiddle, / The cow jumped over the moon; / The little dog laughed / To see such sport, / And the dish ran away with the spoon.	About 1765, traditional
Humpty Dumpty	Humpty Dumpty sat on a wall, / Humpty Dumpty had a great fall. / All the king's horses and all the king's men / Couldn't put Humpty together again.	1797, traditional
Baa, Baa, Black Sheep	Baa, baa, black sheep, / Have you any wool? / Yes sir, yes sir, / Three bags full; / One for the master, / And one for the dame, / And one for the little boy / Who lives down the lane.	About 1744, traditional
Hickory Dickory Dock	Hickory, dickory, dock, / The mouse ran up the clock. / The clock struck one, / The mouse ran down, / Hickory, dickory, dock.	1744, traditional
Jack and Jill	Jack and Jill went up the hill / To fetch a pail of water; / Jack fell down and broke his crown, / And Jill came tumbling after.	About 1765, traditional

A parent and a toddler seen from behind, wrapped in a cream knitted blanket on a window seat, looking out at a crescent moon and stars over snowy hills, with a glowing lamp and an open book beside them.

Short poems for kids ages 6 to 8

Short poems for kids ages 6 to 8 can run to three or four verses and tell a small story. Children this age like poems that are cheeky or dreamy, and they can read lines aloud with you.

8. My Shadow. A child describes a shadow that grows, shrinks and stays in bed.

A small curly-haired child walks barefoot past a cream garden wall with pots of orange flowers and a watering can, while a soft shadow of the child moves along the wall.

My Shadow, Robert Louis Stevenson (1885)
I have a little shadow that goes in and out with me,
And what can be the use of him is more than I can see.
He is very, very like me from the heels up to the head;
And I see him jump before me, when I jump into my bed.

The funniest thing about him is the way he likes to grow –
Not at all like proper children, which is always very slow;
For he sometimes shoots up taller like an india-rubber ball,
And he sometimes goes so little that there's none of him at all.

He hasn't got a notion of how children ought to play,
And can only make a fool of me in every sort of way.
He stays so close behind me, he's a coward you can see;
I'd think shame to stick to nursie as that shadow sticks to me!

One morning, very early, before the sun was up,
I rose and found the shining dew on every buttercup;
But my lazy little shadow, like an arrant sleepy-head,
Had stayed at home behind me and was fast asleep in bed.

9. The Swing. Read it with a push-pull rhythm, or read it at the park.

The Swing, Robert Louis Stevenson (1885)
How do you like to go up in a swing,
Up in the air so blue?
Oh, I do think it the pleasantest thing
Ever a child can do!

Up in the air and over the wall,
Till I can see so wide,
River and trees and cattle and all
Over the countryside –

Till I look down on the garden green,
Down on the roof so brown –
Up in the air I go flying again,
Up in the air and down!

10. Bed in Summer. Every child who has gone to bed while it was still light outside will agree with this one.

Bed in Summer, Robert Louis Stevenson (1885)
In winter I get up at night
And dress by yellow candle-light.
In summer quite the other way,
I have to go to bed by day.

I have to go to bed and see
The birds still hopping on the tree,
Or hear the grown-up people's feet
Still going past me in the street.

And does it not seem hard to you,
When all the sky is clear and blue,
And I should like so much to play,
To have to go to bed by day?

11. The Land of Nod. A calm bedtime poem about the place dreams take you.

The Land of Nod, Robert Louis Stevenson (1885)
From breakfast on through all the day
At home among my friends I stay,
But every night I go abroad
Afar into the land of Nod.

All by myself I have to go,
With none to tell me what to do –
All alone beside the streams
And up the mountain-sides of dreams.

The strangest things are these for me,
Both things to eat and things to see,
And many frightening sights abroad
Till morning in the land of Nod.

Try as I like to find the way,
I never can get back by day,
Nor can remember plain and clear
The curious music that I hear.

12. The Moon's the North Wind's Cooky. Vachel Lindsay's eight lines from The Congo and Other Poems, first published in 1914, explain the phases of the moon with a hungry wind.

The Moon's the North Wind's Cooky, Vachel Lindsay (1914)
The Moon's the North Wind's cooky.
He bites it, day by day,
Until there's but a rim of scraps
That crumble all away.

The South Wind is a baker.
He kneads clouds in his den,
And bakes a crisp new moon that... greedy
North... Wind... eats... again!

13. Wynken, Blynken, and Nod. Eugene Field's lullaby, first published on March 9, 1889, as Dutch Lullaby. The last verse reveals who the three fishermen are.

Wynken, Blynken, and Nod, Eugene Field (1889)
Wynken, Blynken, and Nod one night
Sailed off in a wooden shoe –
Sailed on a river of crystal light,
Into a sea of dew.
"Where are you going, and what do you wish?"
The old moon asked the three.
"We have come to fish for the herring fish
That live in this beautiful sea;
Nets of silver and gold have we!"
Said Wynken,
Blynken,
And Nod.

The old moon laughed and sang a song,
As they rocked in the wooden shoe,
And the wind that sped them all night long
Ruffled the waves of dew.
The little stars were the herring fish
That lived in that beautiful sea –
"Now cast your nets wherever you wish –
Never afeard are we";
So cried the stars to the fishermen three:
Wynken,
Blynken,
And Nod.

All night long their nets they threw
To the stars in the twinkling foam –
Then down from the skies came the wooden shoe,
Bringing the fishermen home;
'Twas all so pretty a sail it seemed
As if it could not be,
And some folks thought 'twas a dream they'd dreamed
Of sailing that beautiful sea –
But I shall name you the fishermen three:
Wynken,
Blynken,
And Nod.

Wynken and Blynken are two little eyes,
And Nod is a little head,
And the wooden shoe that sailed the skies
Is a wee one's trundle-bed.
So shut your eyes while mother sings
Of wonderful sights that be,
And you shall see the beautiful things
As you rock in the misty sea,
Where the old shoe rocked the fishermen three:
Wynken,
Blynken,
And Nod.

Funny poems for kids

Funny poems for kids work best in a silly voice, with a pause before the punch line. Riddles are a natural next step: try our riddles for kids.

14. The Owl and the Pussy-cat. Lear's poem first appeared in 1870 in the magazine Our Young Folks, then in his 1871 book Nonsense Songs. Wikipedia notes that the word "runcible" was invented for it.

The Owl and the Pussy-cat, Edward Lear (1871)
The Owl and the Pussy-Cat went to sea
In a beautiful pea-green boat:
They took some honey, and plenty of money
Wrapped up in a five-pound note.
The Owl looked up to the stars above,
And sang to a small guitar,
"O lovely Pussy, O Pussy, my love,
What a beautiful Pussy you are,
You are,
You are!
What a beautiful Pussy you are!"

Pussy said to the Owl, "You elegant fowl,
How charmingly sweet you sing!
Oh! let us be married; too long we have tarried:
But what shall we do for a ring?"
They sailed away, for a year and a day,
To the land where the bong-tree grows;
And there in a wood a Piggy-wig stood,
With a ring at the end of his nose,
His nose,
His nose,
With a ring at the end of his nose.

"Dear Pig, are you willing to sell for one shilling
Your ring?" Said the Piggy, "I will."
So they took it away, and were married next day
By the Turkey who lives on the hill.
They dined on mince and slices of quince,
Which they ate with a runcible spoon;
And hand in hand, on the edge of the sand,
They danced by the light of the moon,
The moon,
The moon,
They danced by the light of the moon.

15. There Was an Old Man with a Beard. A limerick from Lear's A Book of Nonsense, first published in 1846. Ask your child to draw the beard with all the birds in it.

There Was an Old Man with a Beard, Edward Lear (1846)
There was an Old Man with a beard,
Who said, "It is just as I feared! –
Two Owls and a Hen,
Four Larks and a Wren,
Have all built their nests in my beard!"

16. The Purple Cow. Four lines by Gelett Burgess, first printed in the first issue of The Lark on May 1, 1895.

The Purple Cow, Gelett Burgess (1895)
I never saw a purple cow,
I never hope to see one;
But I can tell you, anyhow,
I'd rather see than be one!

17. How Doth the Little Crocodile. Alice recites this in Alice's Adventures in Wonderland (1865) when she tries to say a different poem and gets the words wrong.

How Doth the Little Crocodile, Lewis Carroll (1865)
How doth the little crocodile
Improve his shining tail,
And pour the waters of the Nile
On every golden scale!

How cheerfully he seems to grin,
How neatly spread his claws,
And welcome little fishes in
With gently smiling jaws!

Famous poems for kids ages 9 and 10

Famous poems for kids ages 9 and 10 can hold a bigger idea, a strange word or a line to argue about. Emily Dickinson and Lewis Carroll suit this age well, because children can spot what the poet is doing with words.

18. "Hope" Is the Thing with Feathers. Dickinson's poem was first printed in 1891 in Poems by Emily Dickinson, Second Series, edited by Thomas Wentworth Higginson and Mabel Loomis Todd. The text here is that first printed version, which uses commas where her handwritten copy has dashes.

Hope, Emily Dickinson (1891)
Hope is the thing with feathers
That perches in the soul,
And sings the tune without the words,
And never stops at all,

And sweetest in the gale is heard;
And sore must be the storm
That could abash the little bird
That kept so many warm.

I've heard it in the chillest land,
And on the strangest sea;
Yet, never, in extremity,
It asked a crumb of me.

19. I'm Nobody! Who Are You? Eight lines from the same 1891 book, good for a talk about being shy.

I'm Nobody! Who Are You?, Emily Dickinson (1891)
I'm nobody! Who are you?
Are you nobody, too?
Then there's a pair of us – don't tell!
They'd banish us, you know.

How dreary to be somebody!
How public, like a frog
To tell your name the livelong day
To an admiring bog!

20. A Bird Came Down the Walk. Printed in 1891 as In the Garden. Ask your child which line turns flying into rowing.

A Bird Came Down the Walk, Emily Dickinson (1891)
A bird came down the walk:
He did not know I saw;
He bit an angle-worm in halves
And ate the fellow, raw.

And then he drank a dew
From a convenient grass,
And then hopped sidewise to the wall
To let a beetle pass.

He glanced with rapid eyes
That hurried all abroad –
They looked like frightened beads, I thought;
He stirred his velvet head

Like one in danger; cautious,
I offered him a crumb,
And he unrolled his feathers
And rowed him softer home

Than oars divide the ocean,
Too silver for a seam,
Or butterflies, off banks of noon,
Leap, splashless, as they swim.

21. Jabberwocky. Carroll's nonsense ballad from Through the Looking-Glass (1871). Let your child guess what "slithy" or "frumious" means.

Jabberwocky, Lewis Carroll (1871)
'Twas brillig, and the slithy toves
Did gyre and gimble in the wabe;
All mimsy were the borogoves,
And the mome raths outgrabe.

"Beware the Jabberwock, my son!
The jaws that bite, the claws that catch!
Beware the Jubjub bird, and shun
The frumious Bandersnatch!"

He took his vorpal sword in hand:
Long time the manxome foe he sought –
So rested he by the Tumtum tree,
And stood awhile in thought.

And as in uffish thought he stood,
The Jabberwock, with eyes of flame,
Came whiffling through the tulgey wood,
And burbled as it came!

One, two! One, two! And through and through
The vorpal blade went snicker-snack!
He left it dead, and with its head
He went galumphing back.

"And hast thou slain the Jabberwock?
Come to my arms, my beamish boy!
O frabjous day! Callooh! Callay!"
He chortled in his joy.

'Twas brillig, and the slithy toves
Did gyre and gimble in the wabe;
All mimsy were the borogoves,
And the mome raths outgrabe.

Winter and nature poems for November

Winter and nature poems fit the dark evenings of November, when bedtime comes before dinner feels finished. Robert Frost's Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening was first published in his 1923 book New Hampshire and entered the US public domain in January 2019.

22. Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening. Read the last two lines slowly; they repeat on purpose.

Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening, Robert Frost (1923)
Whose woods these are I think I know.
His house is in the village though;
He will not see me stopping here
To watch his woods fill up with snow.

My little horse must think it queer
To stop without a farmhouse near
Between the woods and frozen lake
The darkest evening of the year.

He gives his harness bells a shake
To ask if there is some mistake.
The only other sound's the sweep
Of easy wind and downy flake.

The woods are lovely, dark and deep,
But I have promises to keep,
And miles to go before I sleep,
And miles to go before I sleep.

23. Dust of Snow. One sentence in eight short lines, also from New Hampshire (1923).

Dust of Snow, Robert Frost (1923)
The way a crow
Shook down on me
The dust of snow
From a hemlock tree

Has given my heart
A change of mood
And saved some part
Of a day I had rued.

24. Winter-Time. Stevenson's cold-morning poem ends with a garden frosted like a wedding cake.

Winter-Time, Robert Louis Stevenson (1885)
Late lies the wintry sun a-bed,
A frosty, fiery sleepy-head;
Blinks but an hour or two; and then,
A blood-red orange, sets again.

Before the stars have left the skies,
At morning in the dark I rise;
And shivering in my nakedness,
By the cold candle, bathe and dress.

Close by the jolly fire I sit
To warm my frozen bones a bit;
Or with a reindeer-sled, explore
The colder countries round the door.

When to go out, my nurse doth wrap
Me in my comforter and cap;
The cold wind burns my face, and blows
Its frosty pepper up my nose.

Black are my steps on silver sod;
Thick blows my frosty breath abroad;
And tree and house, and hill and lake,
Are frosted like a wedding cake.

25. Hurt No Living Thing. Rossetti's list of small creatures from Sing-Song (1872) pairs well with our kindness quotes for kids.

Hurt No Living Thing, Christina Rossetti (1872)
Hurt no living thing:
Ladybird, nor butterfly,
Nor moth with dusty wing,
Nor cricket chirping cheerily,
Nor grasshopper so light of leap,
Nor dancing gnat, nor beetle fat,
Nor harmless worms that creep.

How to read a poem aloud with your child

Reading a poem aloud with your child takes two minutes and works best as a game. The same habits that help with read-aloud books for kids help here: a slow voice, a pause, and room for your child to join in.

Read it twice. Read the poem once for the sound and once for the story. On the second reading your child will start to hear where the rhymes fall.
Clap the beat. Clap or tap the strong beats as you read: in "I have a little shadow," clap on "have," "lit" and "sha." Swinging, marching and rocking work too.
Leave out the rhyme. Stop before the last word of a line ("It falls on field and...") and let your child shout "tree!" This is the fastest way to build rhyme awareness.
Act it out. Be the swing, the shadow or the owl. Small children remember a poem better when their body knows it too.
Talk about one picture. Ask one question, such as "What does the wind do to the trees?" and stop there.
Read it again tomorrow. Repetition is the point. A poem your child has heard seven times is a poem they can say on their own.

Help your child memorize a poem

Memorizing a poem goes fastest with four to eight lines and a week of short daily readings. Start with Rain, Happy Thought or The Purple Cow, and let your child say a line with you each day until they can say the whole thing alone.

When your child knows it, let them perform it for a grandparent, a stuffed animal or the dinner table.

Help your child write a first poem

Writing a first poem is easy when you start from a simple form your child can fill in. These three forms work from about age 5, with you writing the words down if your child is not writing yet:

Couplet: Two lines that rhyme. "My dog is brown and likes to run / He sleeps all day out in the sun." Give your child the first line and let them find the rhyme.
Acrostic: Write your child's name down the page, one letter per line, and start each line with that letter.
List poem: A list of things that share one idea, such as "Things that are soft" or "What I hear at night". Rossetti's What Is Pink? is a list poem, so read it first as a model.

Picture books with rhyming text are another source of models; our best picture books list includes several that rhyme.

Common mistakes when sharing poems with kids

The common mistakes when sharing poems with kids are poems that run too long and readings that turn into lessons.

Too long, too soon: A 40-line ballad loses a 4-year-old by line ten. Start with four lines and build up.
Explaining every word: A child does not need "arrant" or "rued" defined to enjoy the sound. Answer questions when they come.
Testing instead of playing: "What does this poem mean?" feels like school. "Which line is your favorite?" invites an answer.
Only one poet: Mix old and new, serious and silly. A Stevenson poem one night and a Silverstein poem the next keeps both fresh.
Printing modern poems: Poems by living or recent poets are under copyright. Borrow their books from the library or buy them instead of copying them out.

Poetry books for kids to borrow from the library

Poetry books for kids by modern poets are still under copyright, so the best way to share them is to borrow them. Jack Prelutsky became the first US Children's Poet Laureate in 2006, and Kenn Nesbitt was named Children's Poet Laureate by the Poetry Foundation in 2013.

Book	Poet	Year	Publisher	What you get
Where the Sidewalk Ends	Shel Silverstein	1974	Harper & Row	Silly poems with the poet's own line drawings
A Light in the Attic	Shel Silverstein	1981	Harper & Row	More Silverstein poems and drawings
The New Kid on the Block	Jack Prelutsky	1984	Greenwillow Books	Funny poems about odd creatures, drawings by James Stevenson
My Hippo Has the Hiccups	Kenn Nesbitt	2009	Sourcebooks Jabberwocky	Funny poems; the full title ends And Other Poems I Totally Made Up
The Dream Keeper and Other Poems	Langston Hughes	1932	Knopf	A Hughes collection to read with older children
Winter Bees & Other Poems of the Cold	Joyce Sidman	2014	Houghton Mifflin Harcourt	12 poems about animals in winter, with facts, art by Rick Allen
Out of Wonder	Kwame Alexander, Chris Colderley, Marjory Wentworth	2017	Candlewick	20 poems in honor of famous poets, art by Ekua Holmes
Change Sings	Amanda Gorman	2021	Viking	A picture-book anthem about making change

A rhyming poem about a swing or a shadow is lovely. A rhyming bedtime story where your child is the hero is the one they ask for again and again.

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