Poetry Month -- A Bad Case of the Giggles

A Bad Case of the Giggles
edited by Bruce Lansky
illustrated by Stephen Carpenter
Simon & Schuster, 1994

I am getting ready to replace this book for the third time. It is literally falling apart from constant use. My favorite thing to do when it's missing is to call out, "Who has A BAD CASE OF THE GIGGLES?" and listen to my students crack up.

Kids love funny poems. They love the sly humor of a pun and the bawdy humor of underwear and diapers.

Here's a favorite from A BAD CASE OF THE GIGGLES:

I SAW YOU

I saw you in the ocean,
I saw you in the sea,
I saw you in the bathtub.
Oops! Pardon me.

--Anonymous

Well, since that was by Anonymous, here's another one. This one's good for working on fluency of expression, but don't tell the kids that. Just tell them to make sure it makes...sense.

I THOUGHT A THOUGHT

I thought a thought.
But the thought I thought wasn't the thought I thought I thought.
If the thought I thought I thought had been the thought
I thought,
I wouldn't have thought so much.

--Anonymous