Search over 1.4 million articles by over 600 experts
  1. Home
  2. Education
  3. Poetry

More from About.com

Browse Topics A-Z

Nursery Rhymes & Children’s Poetry

These links will take you to collections of nursery rhymes, nonsense rhymes, traditional songs, Mother Goose rhymes & their derivations, and all kinds of poems for children.
“Aphrodite, Hecate, Witch -- Mother Goose?!”
Maeschilde’s footnoted tracing of the connections between Mother Goose & mythological figures, pre-Christian symbols & witches is reprinted in a few different pagan journals & Web sites.
“The Bread of Life”
Subtitled “Children & Poetry in Non-Traditional Places,” M.L. Liebler’s essay muses on the importance of poetry in our lives in Rattle #9, a special tribute issue to children & poetry which also offers a collection of poems written by children.
Chansons populaire et enfantines
Thierry Klein has gathered the words to all the French songs & traditional rhymes you’ll ever want to know.
A Child’s Garden of Verses
No directory of children’s favorite poetry should be without Robert Louis Stevenson’s classic volume, published online in its entirety at Poets’ Corner.
Children’s Poetry Archive
The Poetry Archive, founded by British Poet Laureate Andrew Motion & recording producer Richard Carrington, is a great collection of audio files of poets reading their own work. The children’s section is searchable by poet, poem form & theme, everything from fathers to sports to memory to morning. Bravo!
English Rhymes
The vast India Parenting site has this very useful because it’s searchable collection of more than 80 English nursery rhymes, plus smaller collections of rhymes in various Indian languages: Hindi, Gujarati, Marathi, Malayalam, Bengali & Kannada.
Giggle Poetry
From Bruce Lansky & Meadowbrook Press, Giggle Poetry is a bundle of fun with funny poetry for kids: collections of favorite poems & school poems, tongue-twisters, poetry theater, fill-in-the-blank poem games, poems to read & rate, poetry class & poetry contests.
Steven Herrick, Children’s Poet
Steven Herrick is a wonderful Australian writer who began his poetry career writing poems for adults & travelling the world -- now he writes poems for children, young-adult novels, & spends most of his time giving performances & workshops at Australian schools.
The Hunting of the Snark
Lewis Carroll’s classic is at Poets’ Corner: “Inscribed to a dear Child: / in memory of golden summer hours / and whispers of a summer sea.” Also here are the poems from Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland & Through the Looking Glass.
KidzPage
From Emmi Tarr, “for kids of all ages,” here are poems of all shapes & sizes, everything from “Critter ABC’s” to Ogden Nash to “Homegrown Poems” from schools & from the Web.
KidzSing Garden of Songs
Emmi Tarr’s site also has a large collection of nursery rhymes & other traditional songs for kids, with music to sing along to.
“The Magic of Metaphor: Children Writing Poetry”
Perie J. Longo writes about California Poets in the Schools in Rattle #9 a special tribute issue to children & poetry which also offers a collection of poems written by children.
Mama Lisa’s House of Nursery Rhymes
Some of Mama Lisa’s rhymes are old standards like “Hey Diddle Diddle” & “Pop Goes the Weasel,” some are not so well known, but all are accompanied by delightful illustrations & those with drawings marked “click me” are accompanied by wav sound files.
Mother Goose on the Web
The Internet Public Library’s youth collection has read-along versions of “Three Little Kittens,” “Mother Hubbard” & “Little Red Riding Hood” narrated in RealAudio by Trudy Bulkley.
The Mother Goose Pages
An extensive alphabetized list of nursery rhymes, but don’t bother with the links to historical notes or music, because those pages are not functional.
Nursery Rhymes
This large collection of rhymes includes all the old standards plus many traditional songs like “I’ve Been Workin’ on the Railroad,” “Knick Knack Paddy Whack” & “She’ll Be Comin’ Round the Mountain.”
Nursery Rhymes Lyrics & Origins
Did you know that Humpty Dumpty was a 17th century English cannon, or that “Ring Around the Rosie” originated as a way of skirting Protestant bans on dancing? Rhymes.org (UK) has gathered the words & secret histories of hundreds of English nursery rhymes.
Nursery Rhymes for Our Times
Complaining that traditional nursery rhymes are “so archaic as to appear to be nonsense,” Douglas Crockford offers a series of updated rhymes replete with tech references.
Poetry for Kids
Kenn Nesbitt is a Spokane, Washington software engineer who also writes funny poems for kids & gives entertaining performances in schools. His site is a rich resource, full of poems & how-to ideas about rhyming.
World of the Child: Poetry
Mostly Victorian children’s poetry collections from the University of Delaware Library’s special exhibit, “200 Years of Children’s Books.”
  1. Home
  2. Education
  3. Poetry
  4. Poetic Forms
  5. Nursery Rhymes & Kids Poems

©2008 About.com, a part of The New York Times Company.

All rights reserved.