Is your class feeling divided about math? Wishing you could subtract the negativity during your lessons? Maybe it’s time to work on your equation! This list of fun math poems for students in all grade levels will be a welcome addition to your classroom. In fact, they may even transform your kids’ attitudes … exponentially!
Best Math Poems for Elementary School Students
1. Silly Spider by Mr. R
“Slipped down a water spout …”
2. Baloney Belly Billy by Shel Silverstein
“Baloney Belly Billy swallows anything for cash.”
3. Eleven Toes by Mr. R
“Adding is fun!”
4. Eighteen Flavors by Shel Silverstein
“Chocolate, lime and cherry …”
5. Math by Ettie Christian-Bowling
“Why do we need math?”
6. Band-Aids by Shel Silverstein
“One on my knee, and one on my nose …”
7. Solid Figures by Author Unknown
“A cone is like a party hat.”
8. Math’s a Challenge by Shreya Katyal
“Try, try, and try.”
9. Marvelous Math by Rebecca Kai Dotlich
“How fast does a New York taxi go?”
10. Shapes by Shel Silverstein
“A square was sitting quietly”
11. Paragliding and Gravity Maths by Ianthechimp
“You launch, fly, land, bash or crash.”
12. A Maths Poem by Andrew N.
“Should I divide or use subtraction?”
Best Math Poems for Middle School and High School Students
13. Philip Larkin’s Koan by Paisley Rekdal
“In the perfect universe of math it’s said / the world’s eternal aberration.”
14. Mathematics Considered as a Vice by Anthony Hecht
“Among the wings of the most saintly clan.”
15. The Science of Numbers: Or Poetry as Pure Mathematics by William Virgil Davis
“Division is the mistress we agree to sleep with.”
16. The Blue Terrance by Terrance Hayes
“If you subtract the minor losses, you can return to your childhood too …”
17. The Untold Witch by Keith Waldrop
“She would sigh, if she could think of anything intolerable.”
18. Animals by Joshua Corey
“As creatures, coming out to play …”
19. The Center for Atmospheric Research by Bin Ramke
“Pei designed the building with views …”
20. At the End of Life, a Secret by Reginald Dwayne Betts
“Everything measured.”
21. The Origin of Order by Pattiann Rogers
“Stellar dust has settled.”
22. After Midnight by Ray DiPalma
“Without a fixed destination, as a matter of form …”
23. The Drake Equation by Richard Kenney
“Would you say truth’s a property of sentences, but beauty’s not?”
24. Mathematics by Jane Hirschfield
“I have envied those who make something useful, sturdy—a chair, a pair of boots.”
25. Mathematical by Jessica Nelson North
“With what contentment in its ordered ways …”
26. Lullaby for the Mathematician by Robert Bernard Hass
“Come, your miracles of math have gone to sleep …”
27. Introduction to Methods of Mathematical Physics by Lisa Rosenberg
“You must develop a feeling for these symbols.”
28. Morning Song by Sawako Nakayasu
“Every time, these days, it seems, an equation gets forced.”
29. At Forty by Lynn Pedersen
“Pattern or absence of pattern, the way a jet flies.”
30. Pajama Quotient by Linda Gregerson
“Coinage of the not-yet-wholly hardened custodians of public health …”
31. Before I Was a Gazan by Naomi Shihab Nye
“I was a boy and my homework was missing …”
32. My Dog Practices Geometry by Cathryn Essinger
“I do not understand the poets who tell me that I should not personify.”
33. Found Fragment on Ambition by David Tomas Martinez
“if a hood is a sense of place & a sense of place is identity …”
34. bible belted: math by Quraysh Ali Lansana
“there are at least twenty-seven white people i love. i counted.”
35. Calculations by Brenda Cárdenas
“I don’t know what to tell you. Your daughter doesn’t understand math.”
36. Robert Duncan by Robin Blaser
“the absence was there before the meeting …”
37. An Equation by Hyam Plutzik
“Coil upon coil, the grave serpent holds …”
38. Geometry by Rita Dove
“I prove a theorem and the house expands:”
