Poetry for Kids

When I was in elementary school, everyone would give Valentine’s Day cards to everyone else in the class. In second grade, there was a girl in my class that I really liked, and my father convinced me that I should give her an extra special card. The card was big. It was pink and purple,... Read more »

When my kids were in school, my wife and I packed them each a lunch every day. My wife would sometimes put notes in their lunchboxes, often saying, “I love you.” I always wondered whether they found it embarrassing to have love notes from their mother in their lunches. I never did find out. Instead,... Read more »

I have a dog; a little black pug named Jesse. But I often joke that his name should be Hoover, because he’s so great at cleaning up dropped food that it’s like having a little vacuum cleaner. When people ask about him, I tell them he is a “purebred chow-hound” because he seems to always... Read more »

I have a couple of cats, and they both love to sit on my lap. Whenever I’m watching TV or playing a video game, one of my cats will jump up on my lap and go to sleep. Sometimes, they both sit on my lap at the same time! Over the past few months, I... Read more »

This Christmas poem is all about an “idiom.” In case you don’t know, an idiom is an expression whose meaning is not predictable from the words used. For example, to “kick the bucket” means to die, and to “let the cat out of the bag” means to reveal a secret. If you were just learning... Read more »

If you’ve ever talked to an assistant on a mobile device, like Siri, Alexa, or Google Assistant, you probably know that it doesn’t always understand what you are saying as well as you would like. And, often, when you type on a phone or tablet, the autocorrect feature can make some pretty bizarre mistakes. I... Read more »

When I talk to kids, one question they often ask me is if any of my poems are true? That is, they want to know if any of the things I write about actually happened. Of course, I tell them, “No.” My poems are all fiction, meaning I just made them up. However, many of... Read more »

Do you ever feel like your teacher assigns way too much homework? Do you wish it didn’t take so long, or that there was an easier way to do it? My book When the Teacher Isn’t Looking contains about 50 poems about all the silly things that happen at school, including Homework, I Love You, My Dog Does My... Read more »

Do you walk to school? Ride your bike? Take the bus? Or does your mom drive you to school? Where else does she drive you? Do you play a sport or take lessons after school? If you want to go to the store to buy something, does she drive you there? When I was a... Read more »

I love chocolate. Don’t you? I mean, doesn’t everybody? When I was a kid, my favorite Halloween treats were always chocolate candy bars like Hershey’s, Snickers, and Three Musketeers. After Halloween night, I always ate those ones first. After a few days, all that was left were the candies I didn’t like. I’ve heard that... Read more »

There’s a word game I like to play now and then called “Change One Letter.” The object of the game is to change a word, one letter at a time, to make it morph into a completely different word. Each time you change a letter, the result must still be a real word. For example,... Read more » The post On Halloween Night – Podcast Episode appeared first on Kenn Nesbitt's Poetry4kids.com.

Every October, I love to write a few monster poems and Halloween poems. This one is a fun little story about what would happen if an ogre came to your house for dinner. When I write, I often like to play with the rhythm of the words and the rhyme scheme of the poem. If... Read more » The post An Ogre Came Over for Dinner – Podcast Episode appeared first on Kenn Nesbitt's Poetry4kids.com.

The word “hot dog” is a is an interesting one with several different meanings. Most commonly, it is another word for a frankfurter or wiener. Frankfurter, by the way, means “from Frankfurt.” Frankfurt is a city in Germany. Similarly, wiener means “from Vienna.” Vienna is a city in Austria. So, the words frankfurter and wiener... Read more » The post My Dog Likes to Dig – Podcast Episode appeared first on Kenn Nesbitt's Poetry4kids.com.

I love a good joke and I love a good limerick. This poem isn’t quite a limerick because the first line doesn’t rhyme with the second and fifth lines, but it’s close; it has the same rhythm and length, and almost the same rhyme scheme. So, it’s almost a limerick. And it’s also a pretty good... Read more » The post I Washed Our Dad’s Car – Podcast Episode appeared first on Kenn Nesbitt's Poetry4kids.com.

When I was in elementary school, I spent a lot of time learning to make silly faces and strange voices. I taught myself how to wiggle my ears, raise one eyebrow at a time, and pucker my lips like a fish. I learned how to talk like Donald Duck and Mickey Mouse and Dracula. I... Read more » The post I’ve Started Learning Honkish – Podcast Episode appeared first on Kenn Nesbitt's Poetry4kids.com.

List poems can be so much fun to write. All you need is a beginning and an end, and then you can make a list in the middle as long or as short as you like. Shel Silverstein’s poem “Sick” and Jack Prelustky’s “Bleezer’s Ice Cream” are a couple of classic examples of list poems.... Read more » The post Mammals – Podcast Episode appeared first on Kenn Nesbitt's Poetry4kids.com.

I recently added a lesson to poetry4kids showing different ways write a poem using repetition. You can repeat entire stanzas, creating a chorus or refrain in the poem. You can repeat lines, as Robert Frost famously did at the end of “Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening,” or as Dylan Thomas did in “Do... Read more » The post What to Remember in School – Podcast Episode appeared first on Kenn Nesbitt's Poetry4kids.com.

Some people love puns, while others hate them with a passion. People who don’t like puns often call them “groaners” because they groan when they hear them. Personally, I love a good pun. My friend, the poet Jack Pretlutsky once told me he thinks a good pun is one that you can be equally proud... Read more » The post Bob’s Job – Podcast Episode appeared first on Kenn Nesbitt's Poetry4kids.com.

This poem has a rather interesting history. After publishing my first book, The Aliens Have Landed at Our School!, my editor asked if I could write an entire collection of funny poems about school. I assured him that I could and set to work creating a new book. When I was done writing it, he... Read more » The post When the Teacher Isn’t Looking – Podcast Episode appeared first on Kenn Nesbitt's Poetry4kids.com.

I often feel that summer is the best of all seasons, especially when you’re in school for the rest of the year. In the summertime, you don’t usually have to go to school. Instead you can swim, play in the park, or even just stay home and play games instead of doing homework. I have... Read more » The post I Can’t Wait for Summer – Podcast Episode appeared first on Kenn Nesbitt's Poetry4kids.com.