1. The Looney Limerick There Once Was a Verse So Fun …

2. There was an Old Man with a beard, Who said, 'It is just as I feared! Two Owls and a Hen, Four Larks and a Wren, Have all built their nests in my beard!’

3. Where did it come from? Some people say that the limerick was invented by soldiers returning from France to the Irish town of Limerick in the 1700's. Thank you, Edward Lear (1812-1888), for popularizing the limerick. Many of his limericks are in A Book of Nonsense, published in 1864.

4. What is a limerick? It is a five-line poem written with one couplet and one triplet. The rhyme pattern is a a b b a Lines 1, 2 and 5 contain three beats and rhyme Lines 3 and 4 have two beats and rhyme

5. Limericks are meant to be funny. They often contain hyperbole, onomatopoeia, idioms, puns, and other figurative devices. The last line of a good limerick contains the PUNCH LINE or "heart of the joke." As you work with limericks, remember to have pun, I mean FUN!

6. Say it out loud and clap to the rhythm! There was an Old Man with a beard, Who said, 'It is just as I feared! Two Owls and a Hen, Four Larks and a Wren, Have all built their nests in my beard!’

7. Feel the Rhythm! A lady who loved the trombone Was lucky she lived all alone. When she started to play, Her friends stayed away, And left her to sputter and moan.

8. A lady who was smelling a rose Found a parakeet perched on her nose. The rose made her sneeze Which buckled her knees Now the parakeet sits on her toes.

9. This is the Pattern: Line 1 States the situation (3 beats) Line 2 Tells what happened (3 beats) Line 3, 4 Tells what went wrong (2 beats) Line 5 So what (or what happened then) (3 beats)

10. You Try It! An elephant who loved pizza pie Got tomato sauce in his right eye The sauce was so hot ____________________________ and _________________________

11. There was a young girl from New York Who hadn't learned to use a fork _____________________________

12. Now it’s your turn! 1.Try one of these opening lines: There once was a boy/girl named ____________________, There once was a boy/girl from _____________________, or invent your first line. 2. Now brainstorm a few rhyming words for the next line and tell what happened. 3. The next two lines should rhyme and tell a very short story. Remember, it must make sense, but it can be silly. Don't use a line simply because it rhymes with another. 4. The last line should rhyme with the first two.