5 Funny Bedtime Stories For Kids

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Children need positive interactions to create the proper conditions for brain growth and learning. Research proved that any of the following approaches could help:

  • positive emotional support
  • secure learning environments and a feeling of belonging
  • sensory stimulation
  • language-rich environments
  • plenty of interactions
  • encountering novel challenges and problems
  • active engagement with materials, resources, and people
  • hands-on and brains-on activities

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Books can offer such positive interactions! Reading gives children opportunities to meet new challenges and ideas and actively engage with the book in the form of follow-up activities.

Not to mention the fact that when reading to children, parents create a bond that offers so much more than literacy. Parents should read a bedtime story because of the many benefits it offers children, among others giving them a feeling of security and confidence that builds self-esteem.

Our List of Funny Bedtime Stories We hope You’ll Love

The books we chose for this month are funny bedtime stories that encourage children to laugh, enjoy a moment together with parents and see the fun in reading!

The books included in this article are

  1. The Great Gran Plan
  2. We Love You, Hugless Douglas
  3. Zoo On The Moon
  4. One More Sheep
  5. What The Ladybird Heard

  1. The Great Gran Plan

What a wonderful story! A super funny twist to the three little pigs story. One of the pigs decides to save the Granny from Little Red Riding Hood and stop the wolf. He starts a rescue mission, “Start That Gran”, and gets ready for it:

-looks for a super pig cape but ends up with a shawl

-wants to get some binoculars but settles for a pair of spectacles instead

-needs rope to trap the wolf but all he could find was some wool

Needless to say that the pig looks hilarious! Like a little old lady on a rescue mission! And you know what? The wolf mistakes him for Granny and the pig can barely escape! Luckily, someone came to his rescue! Can you guess who?

It’s a brave little hero, with spectacles and a shawl! It’s Granny, you know!

The very same Granny the pig was trying to save!

Look inside the book

Follow Up Activities Inspired by The Great Gran Plan

There are so many actives you could try inspired by this funny bedtime story!

Make capes and superhero costumes! Then you could try to play heroes! Here are a few things you superheroes could do:

  • dress up and rescue the teddy
  • go on a secret mission to spy on dad
  • solve the crime of the missing socks
  • become a superhero that protects the planet and picks up all the litter in a nearby park
  • be a community superhero helper and offer your services; write a letter to those you want to learn from and help out (policemen, doctors, teachers, postmen etc)

Children will most certainly enjoy the story, but what they will enjoy even more are these follow-up activities.

Books inspire change, creativity and gives children the confidence that they can change the world.

Use this power and inspire a CAN DO attitude!

2. We Love You, Hugless Douglas

We are great fans of David Melling, the author of the series Hugless Douglas. He also wrote Emperor of Absurdia, a great book we wrote about in our article 15 Amazing Stories for Kids.

In this short bedtime story, children can have fun with Hugless Douglas and his friends: the sheep and the funny bunnies. Hugless Douglas is a charismatic character, always looking for hugs and the company of friends.

In this particular bedtime story, Hugless is looking forward to spending the day with friends, but all of them are already playing. He feels there is no more room for him in their games!

Flossie and Little Sheep are playing hide and seek, the cows are preparing smooooooo- thies and the flying bunnies are bouncing on a huge trampoline.

There is no one to play with Douglas!

Just when Douglas was starting to feel blue, all of his friends come to join him and remind him that they are ‘ALL best friends together’!

Discussions and Questions to Ask While Reading Hugless Douglas

Each book you read with your child should serve as a discuss starter. Or at least as a moment to share and exchange opinions and ideas.

Here are some questions that could inspire you to challenge your little one’s thinking and perspective:

  • What might Douglas play with his friends on such a beautiful day?
  • Did you ever help a friend like Douglas helped Flossie? How/why?
  • What do you think will happen next?
  • How do you feel when you see Douglas sad and alone?
  • Have you ever felt like Douglas? When?

3. Zoo On The Moon

We all know that the Moon is a very exciting place! But who would have thought that the Moon is also the home of very exotic animals? Have you heard of spotted caterpillars with knobbly knees? What about elephants with faces at the end of their tails?

No?

Not even two-headed penguins? Oh, come on, you must have at least seen some orangutan pies and monkey marshmallows!

If you haven’t, I think it’s time for you to hop on a rocket and get there! As soon as you can! You might need to queue though, everyone wants to get there!

You won’t be disappointed, I promise!

Follow Up Activities For Zoo On The Moon

This funny bedtime story offers great inspiration for projects, so let your creativity go wild! There are some activities I think you would like to try with this book:

  1. Make a cardboard rocket to fly to the Moon. Bring your toys along!
  2. Draw silly animals that you think might also live on the moon
  3. Try arts and crafts projects to build 3D animals. The funnier, the better!
  4. Learn about life on the Moon with these amazing projects about life on the Moon
  5. Make a spacesuit using aluminium foil and cardboard.

I am absolutely sure that your children will come up with amazing ideas as well. Try to provide open-ended materials and allow space and time for them to act on their ideas!

4. One More Sheep

A lovely rhyming book that encourages children to count to ten! You might also like this book because the story is quite funny and there is a moral to it: count your sheep! That is how you make sure you don’t end up with a wolf in sheep’s clothing in bed!

Sam could not count his 10 sheep because he fell asleep as soon as he got to 4. We all know you CAN’t count sheep! Sam will tell you I’m right! He told his sheep just that:

‘You’re not at all interesting.

You’re not at all odd.

You’re a first-class ticket to the land of Nod’.

So what to do? The sheep came up with a plan: to put on a show and keep Sam awake!

What Can Children Learn from One More Sheep?

I think your little ones can first of all learn that counting to 10 is HARD! Not even Sam could do it at first! And he is a proper grown-up!

But don’t worry, I am sure that the sheep will make it easier to count to 10: you count their socks, their snoring heads, their wooly hats, their boring beds! You count them in a huddle and you count them in a show! And finally you count them in a row! (While sleeping in bed)Yes, they all manage to fall asleep in the end!

And last but not least, this funny bedtime story can teach children that sometimes things are not what they appear to be! The wolf may have looked like a sheep, but look closer and you can truly tell that he is nothing but a sharp-toothed carnivore!

5. What The Ladybird Heard

This bedtime story is written by Julia Donaldson, one of our favourite authors! We have written more about her books in our articles, books such as Stick Man, The Grufallo, Zog, Zog and the Flying Doctors, The Smeds and the Smoos, The Smartest Giant In Town and so much more!

Make sure to browse through our Story Books section of the blog for information about each of these children’s books and many others.

What the Ladybird Heard is a funny story in which a ladybird who can’t say a word, suddenly starts talking. She had to! Two thieves were threatening to steal the cow! So she comes up with a plan!

All the animals work together to trick the thieves:

the goose said neigh

the dog quacked

oink said the cat

baa said the fat red hen

and moo said the duck!

I know, I know, that’s not what the animals say! But this was a special occasion: the animals tricked the thieves to think they were someone else! The thieves got confused and landed in the pond. That will show them! You do not mess with farm animals you know!

Follow Up Activities For What The Ladybird Said

This funny bedtime story could inspire you to come up with great activities that involve animals and farm life. Here are just a few:

  1. Create a farm in a sensory box. Add lots of animals and elements: stables, hay, trough, tractor etc
  2. Sort farm animals according to various criteria
  3. Sing a song: Old MacDonald Had a Farm, The Animals Sound Song etc
  4. Feed farm animals and learn about what each farm animal eats
  5. Play guess the animal using a flashlight
  6. Use building blocks and build houses for each farm animal
  7. Mime the animals and guess
  8. Draw the animals and guess

Final thoughts on reading funny bedtime stories to kids

Children love to learn, it is in fact very difficult to prevent them from learning! So, why not make good use of each moment spent together? Books can offer amazing learning opportunities with a long-lasting impact.

Read more about the importance of reading to kids and find out why reading helps and how!

Funny books make reading all the more enjoyable so try to choose funny bedtime stories to encourage children to laugh and love books! These 5 stories for kids offer amazing learning opportunities and discussion, and we offer plenty of follow up activities that are easy to set up and fun!

Enjoy your bonding time reading!

We share all of our ideas on our Facebook group Learning Activities for Kids!

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5 thoughts on “5 Funny Bedtime Stories For Kids”

  1. We haven’t read any of these yet but love to read books. We read all the time and my toddler loves the funny books. We will definitely check them out!

  2. I love all these funny bedtime stories but I really love the “One More Sheep”. I recently I watched this story on YouTube and the way storyteller has told the story is awesome!

    Thanks for sharing your list

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