Marytale
Jokes for Kindergarteners and Preschoolers
24 jokes
Most jokes fail a four-year-old for the same reason: it is built on puns. A pun needs a child to hold two meanings of a word at once, and that ability arrives somewhere around five — before it, the joke is simply a sentence that does not make sense, and the child watches you laugh and does not know why.
So these 24 keep the wordplay as small as it gets: one word a preschooler already uses every day — cow, bear, banana, cookie — doing a second job, plus a few that are just plain silly. A three-year-old who does not get the pun yet will still love shouting the punchline, and the pun catches up a year later.
Why did the cow go upstairs?
Show the punchline
Because the stairs can't go up the cow
What do you call a sleeping bull?
Show the punchline
A bulldozer
Where do fish keep their money?
Show the punchline
In the riverbank
What do you call a bear with no teeth?
Show the punchline
A gummy bear
Why did the teddy bear say no to dessert?
Show the punchline
Because he was already stuffed
What has four wheels and flies?
Show the punchline
A garbage truck
Why can't you give Elsa a balloon?
Show the punchline
Because she'll let it go
What is a cat's favorite color?
Show the punchline
Purrrple
Why did the banana go to the doctor?
Show the punchline
It wasn't peeling well
What do you call a dog in the sunshine?
Show the punchline
A hot dog
Why do bees have sticky hair?
Show the punchline
Because they use honeycombs
What do you call a dog that can do magic?
Show the punchline
A labracadabrador
Why did the picture go to jail?
Show the punchline
It was framed
What is a scarecrow's favorite fruit?
Show the punchline
Straw-berries
Why can't your nose be twelve inches long?
Show the punchline
Because then it would be a foot
What do you call a duck that gets all A's?
Show the punchline
A wise quacker
Why did the cookie go to the doctor?
Show the punchline
Because it felt crummy
What is a pirate's favorite letter?
Show the punchline
You'd think it's R, but his heart belongs to the C
What did one wall say to the other wall?
Show the punchline
See you at the corner
Why are elephants so bad at hiding?
Show the punchline
Because they can never find a big enough tree
What do you call a fish with no eyes?
Show the punchline
Fsh
Why did the belt get arrested?
Show the punchline
For holding up a pair of pants
What is brown and sticky?
Show the punchline
A stick
Why do seagulls fly over the sea?
Show the punchline
Because if they flew over the bay they'd be bagels
How to tell them
At this age the point is not the joke, it is the taking turns. A four-year-old who tells you a joke is practicing a whole conversation shape — I say a thing, you wait, I say the other thing, you laugh — and that is worth far more than the punchline. So laugh properly, even at the fourteenth telling, and especially at the ones they invent, which will be nonsense for about a year. “Why did the chicken cross the road? Because BANANA!” is not a failed joke, it is a child who has understood the shape and not yet the content, and the content follows on its own. One practical thing: pick ONE joke and let them tell it to everyone in the family for a week. Repetition at four is not boredom, it is rehearsal — and the day they get a real laugh out of grandma is the day they decide they are funny.
After the jokes, a story: illustrated bedtime stories on Marytale
Riddles
These 24 jokes were chosen and written by Marytale for children aged 3 to 6. Many are playground classics, reworded so that every word is one a preschooler already knows.