31 Most Popular Short Poems For Kids

Are you looking for a great way to engage your child in poetry? If so, you should consider reading them some of the most popular short poems for kids. Poems help your child to learn about their world while also encouraging them to explore their imagination. Kids’ poetry is a great way to introduce them to famous poems without overwhelming them with longer, more complicated poems.

Though short poems for kids may seem less significant than poems for older kids and adults, they can be just as powerful. Poems for kids offer a platform to teach them lessons about the world around them and ideas that will serve as their foundation as they grow up.

As well you should consider using short poems to improve your child’s behavior, creativity, and environmental awareness. In this blog, we’ll look at a few of the most popular short poems for kids. These poems are enjoyable for children of all ages and can help promote a love of literature. From nursery rhymes to a classic children’s poem, this list features a bit of everything.

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Best short poems for kids

Furthermore, short poems are nice to read, they can serve as mini-lessons. Kids may be able to learn some English words while enjoying the cute nursery rhyme. For your children’s poetry projects, you can choose nursery rhymes for kids and change them into stunning short poems. For children’s literature reading short poems is a step to make kids love poetry. Below you will find some funny poems that can help your child to achieve their reading skills goals and these poems are:

1. 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.

2. A million little diamonds by Mary Frances Butts

A million little diamonds in the sky,
And twinkle on the tress, and every little dew:
A million little diamonds winking at me,
And what does it all mean, and why is it so?

3. Somewhere Over The Rainbow

Somewhere over the rainbow Way up high,
There’s a land that I heard of once in a lullaby.
Somewhere over the rainbow skies are blue,
And the dreams that you dare to dream do come true.
Somewhere over the rainbow.

4. At The Zoo by William Makepeace Thackeray

First I saw the white bear, then I saw the black;
Then I saw the camel; oh, what a funny hack!
And when he turned around to chew his thread,
I saw the elephant’s trunk that curled like a crochet needle.

5. The Owl and the Pussycat by (Anonymous)

O! I ask not for beauty, as others beguiling;
This beautiful face is enough for me.
And I will not dally in innocence smitten
With a flutter of lashes or concertina’d skirt-a–skirt-i–to.
I cannot waste my sweetness on the desert air,
Nor prink or primp before a mirror loom;
I will not dally in innocence smitten.

6. The Tyger by (Anonymous)

Tyger Tyger, burning bright,
In the forests of the night;
What immortal hand or eye,
Could frame thy fearful symmetry?
In what distant deeps or skies.
Burnt the fire of thine eyes?
On what wings dare he aspire?
What the hand dared seize the fire?
And what shoulder and what art,
Could twist the sinews of thy heart?
And when thy heart began to beat,
What dread hand? And what dread feet?
What the hammer? What the chain,
In what furnace was thy brain?
its deadly terrors clasp?”

7. Dear me by (Anonymous)

Dear me, what is the matter with me?
I never could spell CAT if I tried.
My teacher says I should try to be good.
And listen more, and speak less, like you.

8. Elephant (Anonymous)

I’m looking up in the air,
Where did he go?
He’s way up there.
Floating so high.
And now I see him wink his eye,
And he has such big feet! Oh my!
An elephant a waving half a hundred bridges.
And never know what is this?
I think he is that.
That’s not an elephant; elephants go on four legs.

9. Sick by Shel Silverstein

Sick, sick, sick.
I feel sick today.
My head feels like a balloon.
My stomach’s turning flips.  I’m not at all well!

10. The road not taken by Robert Louis Stevenson

TWO roads diverged in a yellow wood,
And sorry I could not travel both
And be one traveler, long I stood
And looked down one as far as I could
To where it bent in the undergrowth;
THEN took the other, as just as fair,
And having perhaps the better claim,
Because it was grassy and wanted wear;
Though as for that the passing there
Had worn them really about the same,
And both that morning equally lay
In leaves, no step had trodden black.
Oh, I kept the first for another day!  Yet knowing how way leads on to way,
I doubted if I should ever come back.
I shall be telling this with a sigh
Somewhere ages and ages hence:
Two roads diverged in a wood, and I—
I took the one less traveled by,
And that has made all the difference.

11. The giving tree by Shel Silverstein

“I am a tree,” said the tree.
And she loved a little boy.
And every day the boy would come
And he would gather her leaves,
Gather them and pile them at her roots so she could sleep.
The next day he would return, and take her branches to build his house,
Build it high into the sky,
So she could see all the world.
“I am a tree,” said the tree.
And she loved that little boy.

12. A bird did fly by Emily Dickinson

A bird did fly
And a fish did swim
You may think this odd, but a fish did fly
It flopped in the sand
So I let it go back to sea.

13. Oh Be Careful Little Ears by A.A Milne

Oh be careful little ears what you hear,
Grown-ups are talking of things that would hurt you so;
They may be much nicer than they seem,
So little ears – Oh be careful little ears what you hear!
It’s awfully exciting to think of the grown-ups,
All the secret things they know,
And all the extraordinary adventures they go to have!
How lucky it is for us that they just let us share,
Just a tiny corner of what’s their pleasure and care;
Just so much – Oh be careful little ears what you hear!
But sometimes the sweet forget me nots
Of the wonderful tales, grown-ups tell,
Seem to be bruised and bleeding underneath the eaves!
And then little ears prick up at things not meant for you –
Oh be careful little ears what you hear!

14. The real mother goose by Issac Goose

This is the real mother goose,
When she wanted to wander she’d fly,
And then she’d swim and then she’s walk.
She walked and swam and flew all over the town!
This is the way she went – Hush-a-bye baby!
This is the way she went – Hush-a-bye baby!
This is the way she went – Click, clack, clickety-clack!

15. My shadow by  Robert Louis Stevenson

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 gets so little that there’s none of him at all.

16. “Saturday’s Child” by Countée Cullen’s

Saturday’s child works hard for a living,
Sunday’s child is fair of face;
Monday’s child is full of grace;
Tuesday’s child is full of woe;
Wednesday’s child has far to go;
Thursday’s child gets his own way;
Friday’s child is loving and giving;
But Saturday’s child works hard for a living.

17. To a butterfly by William Wordsworth

Stay near me—do not take thy flight!
A little longer stay in sight!
Across the meadow, up the hill,
Thy day’s work is not yet done—
Stay till I have told my heart
The story of thy brief delight!
How thou dost make the sunbeam dance,
Who runs to meet thee everywhere;  And hummest in the golden wheat,
And singest in the flowery weed!

18. The Brook by Lord Tennyson

I come from haunts of coot and hern,
I make a sudden sally, And sparkle out among the fern, To bicker down a valley.
By thirty hills I hurry down,
Or slip between the ridges, By twenty thorpes, a little town,
And half a hundred bridges or many a silvery waterbreak
I hurry out from cover,
And snap the stalks of water flags,
That lean across my path;
By twenty streams I hurry down,
Or slide between the ridges,
Bicker, linger, hurry down.

19. Little Bo Peep by Anonymous

Little Bo-peep has lost her sheep,
And can’t tell where to find them;
Leave them alone and they’ll come home,
And bring their tails behind them.
Children laugh as children always will,
At any joke that is told in fun;
Old folks, you know, grow grave enough,
Sometimes at a thing, they are shown.

20. Trees by Joyce Kilmer

I think that I shall never see
A poem lovely as a tree.
A tree whose hungry mouth is prest
Against the earth’s sweet flowing breast;
A tree that looks at God all day,
And lifts her leafy arms to pray;
A tree that may in Summer wear
A nest of robins in her hair;
Upon whose bosom snow has lain;
Who intimately lives with rain.
Poems are made by fools like me,
But only God can make a tree.

21. The Daffodils by William Wordsworth

I wandered lonely as a cloud
That floats on high o’er vales and hills,
When all at once I saw a crowd,
A host, of golden daffodils;
Beside the lake, beneath the trees,
Fluttering and dancing in the breeze.
Continuous as the stars that shine
And twinkle on the Milky Way,
They stretched in never-ending line
Along the margin of a bay:
Ten thousand saw I at a glance,
Tossing their heads in sprightly dance.
The waves beside them danced; but they
Out-did the sparkling waves in glee:
A poet could not but be gay,
In such a jocund company,
I gazed—and gazed—but little thought
What wealth the show to me had brought:
For oft, when on my couch I lie
In vacant or in a pensive mood.

22. Hey Diddle Diddle by  Unknown

Hey diddle diddle,
The cat and the fiddle,
The purple cow jumped over the moon.
The little dog laughed
To see such sport,
And the dish ran away with the spoon.

23. Rain Rain Go Away by unknown

Rain, rain, go away.
Come again another day.
Little Johnny wants to play.
Rain, rain, go away.

24. From a Railway Carriage by Robert Louis Stevenson

Faster than fairies, faster than witches;
Bridges and houses, hedges and ditches;
And charging along like troops in a battle:
All through the meadows the horses and cattle:
All of the sights of the hill and the plain
Fly as thick as driving rain;
And ever again, in the wink of an eye,
Painted stations whistle by.

25. The Green Grass Grows All-Around By Unkown

The green grass grows all around,
The white clouds roll around,
And the lightning bugs play peek-a-boo
As I lie in my bed.
I can see the moon and stars –  One, two, three!

26. There will come soft rains by Sara Teasdale

There will come soft rains and the smell of the ground,
And swallows circling with their shimmering sound;
And frogs in the pools singing at night,
And wild plum trees in tremulous white;
Robins will wear their feathery fire,
Whistling their whims on a low fence-wire;
And not one will know of the war, not one
Will care at last when it is done.
Not one would mind, neither bird nor tree
If mankind perished utterly;
And Spring herself, when she woke at dawn,
Would scarcely know that we were gone.

27. I’m a little teapot by unkown

I’m a little teapot, short and stout.
Here is my handle, here is my spout.
When I get all steamed up, hear me shout–
“Just tip me over and pour me out!”
I’m a clever teapot, hear me sing.
Tip me up and pour me out!
I can dance right side up or upside down,
And I can fill myself when I get all steamed up!

28. Little Miss Muffet by Anonymous

Little Miss Muffet
Sat on a tuffet,
Eating her curds and whey;
Along came a spider,
Who sat down beside her,
And frightened Miss Muffet away.  

29. Between the grey wolf and dog By Unkown

Between the grey wolf and dog,
There was a boy, his name was Joe.
Joe loved to play with the dog,
Till one day he went too far.
He patted the dog, he stroked its back,
And then it bit him with its black-as-night pack .
O’ what a bite! O’ what a rip!
Off went Joe’s head and then his hip.
All we found were bits and gore,
Mixed in with blood and golden hair.

30. Baa, Baa, Black Sheep By Unkown Author

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.

31. Marry had a little lamp by (Not Known)

Marry had a little lamp,
It took two to make it bright;
This lamp burnt down and then there was none;
The master got mad and then there were none,
And nor was there anymore.

The Bottom line

However, there are so many different short poems for kids that it can be hard to know where to start. Hopefully, this list of 31 poems will give you a good place to begin and help you find the perfect poem for your needs. From Robert Frost’s “The Road Not Taken” to Shel Silverstein’s whimsical “The Giving Tree,” these short poems will engage and entertain kids of all ages. So gather up your little ones and enjoy some quality poetry time together with these classics from the masters.

Whether you’re looking for a poem to recite at a school event or just want something fun to read with your child, these poems are sure to please. Many studies show that reading poetry leads to increased creativity in people who read it, so this is a great way to help develop their minds! If you have any favorite poems not mentioned here, let us know through a comment below.