Dinosaur Jokes for Kids

20 jokes

There is an age — usually somewhere between four and seven — when a child knows more dinosaur names than you do, corrects your pronunciation of them, and will happily explain which ones did not actually live at the same time. These 20 jokes are for exactly that child.

All of them are ours. Most run on the same simple machine: take a long dinosaur name and hide an ordinary word inside it. A child who is already collecting dinosaur names finds this enormously satisfying, because they get the joke before you finish saying it.

What do you call a dinosaur that is sleeping?
Show the punchline
A dino-snore
What do you call a dinosaur with a big vocabulary?
Show the punchline
A thesaurus
Why is it so hard to spell pterodactyl?
Show the punchline
Because the P is silent and never helps
What do you call a dinosaur that never gives up?
Show the punchline
A try-try-try-ceratops
What's the best way to talk to a T-rex?
Show the punchline
From a long way away
Why did the stegosaurus join the woodwork class?
Show the punchline
It already had the saw
What do you call a dinosaur in a car crash?
Show the punchline
Tyrannosaurus wrecks
Why did the dinosaur cross the road?
Show the punchline
Because chickens hadn't been invented yet
What do you call a blind dinosaur?
Show the punchline
Do-you-think-he-saw-us
And what do you call his dog?
Show the punchline
Do-you-think-he-saw-us Rex
Why are there no dinosaurs left?
Show the punchline
Because they never learned to hide behind a tree
What do you call a dinosaur that's made of bricks?
Show the punchline
A construction-saurus
Why was the little dinosaur told off at dinner?
Show the punchline
For dino-saur-ing his vegetables
What does a triceratops sit on?
Show the punchline
Its tricerabottom
Why don't dinosaurs ever tell jokes at breakfast?
Show the punchline
Because it's too early to be extinct-ly funny
What do you get if you cross a dinosaur with a firework?
Show the punchline
Dino-mite
Why did the T-rex lose the tennis match?
Show the punchline
Its arms couldn't reach the ball
What do you call a dinosaur who's a noisy sleeper?
Show the punchline
A bronto-snorus
Why was the velociraptor late for school?
Show the punchline
It got stuck behind a very slow diplodocus
What's a dinosaur's least favourite day?
Show the punchline
The one with the meteor in it

How to tell them

Dinosaur jokes have one advantage no other kind has: the child is usually the expert in the room. Lean into that. Let them correct you — «it's TRY-ceratops, not tri-SER-atops» — and let them judge whether a joke is any good, because at six being the judge is more fun than being the audience. The joke machine here is easy enough to hand over: a long name with a small word hiding in it. Stegosaurus has «saw». Tyrannosaurus has «rex», which sounds like «wrecks». Ask what might be hiding inside diplodocus and be ready for twenty minutes of nonsense and one genuinely clever answer. And if the child is at the stage of reciting facts rather than jokes, let them do that instead — the joke will keep.

More jokes

After the jokes, a story: illustrated bedtime stories on Marytale →

All 20 dinosaur jokes on this page are written by Marytale for children aged 4 to 9. None is copied from another collection.