Short funny poems a 4-year-old can learn?

[IrisWildthyme]

Does anyone else out there have an old-fashioned family who expect everyone to have a "party piece" they can perform to the extended family by way of non-TV-based evening entertainment when we are all together e.g. at Christmas?
My 4yo is now apparently old enough to contribute something. I think he could learn a poem (he knows most of the words to some of the rhyming Julia Donaldson books) but it needs to be something funny (within the sense of humour of a four year old) for him to see the point of standing up and reciting it. I've tried to get him to recite from a storybook he knows but when I do that he just wants to fetch the book and have it read to him, so I want to find and teach him something that he encounters only orally rather than as a book (and something a lot shorter than the poems of a Julia Donaldson book - 8-10 lines would be fine!).
Does anyone know of any suitable poem that could be used in this way?

A couple of the verses of "They're changing guards at Buckingham Palace" might be fun.

Spike Milligan poems are good. Lots of them are short

"Who's that tickling my back ?" said the wall.
"Me " said the caterpillar.
I'm learning to crawl!"

Can a parrot
Eat a carrot
Standing on his head?
If I did that my mum would send me
Straight upstairs to bed.

Spike Milligan
(from memory, so may be slightly wrong).

she fell into the bath tub
she fell into the sink
she fell into the rasberry jam
and came out pink

Mary Mary quite contrary how does your garden grow?
I live with my cat,
In a high rise flat,
So how on earth would I know?
(Roald Dahl)

If I were a furry bear,
And had a furry tummy.
I'd climb into a honey jar,
And make my tummy yummy!

If I were a furry bear,
And had a furry tummy.
I'd climb into a honey jar,
And make my tummy yummy!

:-) thank you!

Twinkle twinkle little bat
How I wonder what you're at
Up above the world so high
Like a teatray in the sky

The Tickle Rhyme, Ian Serraillier

“Who’s that tickling my back?” said the wall.

“Me,” said a small

Caterpillar.

“I’m learning

To crawl.”

First verse of:

One fine day in the middle of the night,
Two dead men got up to fight,
Back to back they faced each other,
Drew their swords and shot each other,

One was blind and the other couldn't, see
So they chose a dummy for a referee.
A blind man went to see fair play,
A dumb man went to shout "hooray!"

A paralysed donkey passing by,
Kicked the blind man in the eye,
Knocked him through a nine inch wall,
Into a dry ditch and drowned them all,

A deaf policeman heard the noise,
And came to arrest the two dead men,
If you don't believe this story’s true,
Ask the blind man he saw it too!

My 4 year old has just started learning a few rhymes off her own bat. Her favourites are:

Here am I
Little Jumping Joan
When nobody's with me
I'm all alone!

Gregory Griggs, Gregory Griggs
Had twenty seven different wigs.
He wore them up, he wore them down
To please the people of the town.
He wore them east, he wore them west
But he never could tell which he liked the best!

Little blue Ben
Who lives in the glen
Has a blue cat
And one blue hen
Who lays of blue eggs
A score and ten!
Where can I find
The little blue Ben?

Spike Milligan has lots of suitable poems. Have a look also at the limericks of Edward Lear. Get a couple of books from the library and have fun browsing them yourself while choosing something to teach your ds.

All of mine could recite several poems from those books by age 4. Whether they would stand up and perform was a different matter! But if nobody asked them to do so, and other people were taking turns reciting, then eventually they would always want to join in and show off perform.

Yes, I guess we're a slightly nutty family. We often recite poems together. One if my dcs' favourites is

''Twas in the month of Liverpool,
In the city of July,
The rain was snowing heavily
And the streets were very dry.

My Sister Laura

My sister Laura's bigger than me
And lifts me up quite easily.
I can't lift her, I've tried and tried;
She must have something heavy inside.

There Are Holes In The Sky

There are holes in the sky
Where the rain gets in
But there ever so small
That's why the rain is thin.

My son came home from school saying this poem a year or two ago:

Nutter

The moon’s a big round football,

The sun’s a pound of butter.

The earth is going round the twist

And I’m a little nutter.

Kit Wright.

I eat my peas with honey
I've done it all my life
It makes the peas taste funny
But it keeps them on my knife

Think that's Roald Dahl, I remember it from primary school!

My 3yo enjoys:

When I woke up the other day
My head fell off and rolled away!
And when I noticed it was gone
I picked it up and put it on!

He's also learning:
On the Ning Nang Nong where the cows go bong
And the monkeys all say boo,
There's a Nong Nang Ning where the trees go ping
And the teapots jibber jabber joo.
On the Nong Ning Nang all the mice go clang
And you just can't catch 'em when they do.
So it's Ning Nang Nong, cows go bong,
Nong, Nang, Ning, trees go ping
Nong Ning Nang, all the mice go clang
What a noisy place to belong is the Ning Nang Ning Nang Nong.

I wish I were a caterpillar.
Life would be a blast.
In summer i would climb the trees
And slide down on my hands and knees.

The four year old won't get it but the rest of the room should collapse!!

In days of old
When knights were bold
And toilets weren't invented
They'd dig a hole behind a fence
And sit there quite contented

(Dr Seuss - Happy Birthday To You!)

If we didn't have birthdays,
you wouldn't be you.
If you’d never been born,
well then what would you do?
If you’d never been born,
well then what would you be?
You might be a fish!
Or a toad in a tree!
You might be a doorknob!
Or three baked potatoes!
You might be a bag full of
hard green tomatoes.

Or worse than all that…
Why, you might be a WASN’T!
A Wasn’t has no fun at all.
No, he doesn’t.

A Wasn't just isn’t. He just
isn't present. But you…
You ARE YOU!
And, now isn't that pleasant!

I second the Ning Nang Nong.... With expression and suitable rhythm!