All Things Bright and Beautiful by the Irish poet Cecil Frances Alexander is a Christian hymn that explains part of the Apostle’s Creed in poetry for children.Maybe Cecil Frances hid her poetry under the carpet because she thought her father would disapprove.

She was a timid nine-year old girl in Ireland in 1827, and her father Major John Humphreys of the Royal Marines was a stern man.

But her father saw the bulge in the rug in the back room of their house.

When he investigated, he found his daughter’s poems, and something about them must have touched him. Perhaps, he thought, his little girl had talent.

So he sent the poems to his friend John Keble, who was a clergyman and a poet. Keble wrote back.

Young Fanny, as the family called her, was a gifted writer, he said. She should be encouraged.

So Fanny’s father enlisted the family in encouraging the little girl. The next Saturday he called the family together and read Fanny’s poems out loud. Then he showed the family a box with a slot in the top.

Whenever Fanny finished writing a poem, he explained, she should put the poem into the slot. Then when the family came together the next Saturday, she would read the poem.

The family encouraged her with helpful remarks.

When Fanny grew up, she married and became well known as a writer of hymns.

One day Fanny was sitting next to a sick child trying to explain The Apostle’s Creed, which begins “I believe in God the Father Almighty, Maker of heaven and earth...”

The child couldn’t understand the way the creed was phrased. 

So Fanny wrote children’s poems to put the meaning of the Creed into simple words children can understand. Here is one of the poems she wrote:

All things bright and beautiful,

All creatures, great and small,

All things wise and wonderful,

The Lord God made them all.

Each little flower that opens,

Each little bird that sings,

He made their glowing colors,

He made their tiny wings.

The purple-headed mountain,

The river running by,

The sunset and the morning,

That brighten up the sky;

The cold wind in the winter,

The pleasant summer sun

The ripe fruits in the garden,

He made them every one.

The tall trees in the greenwood,

The meadows where we play,

The rushes by the water

We gather every day;

He gave us eyes to see them,

And lips that we might tell

How great is God Almighty

Who has made all things well.

All things bright and beautiful,

All creatures, great and small,

All things wise and wonderful,

The Lord God made them all.

© 2019 Becky Cerling Powers - Story

Cecil Frances Alexander’s poem is in the public domain

Becky Cerling Powers is the author of Sticky Fingers, Sticky Minds: Quick Reads for Helping Kids Thrive, a Bathroom Book for people who want to be better parents but live such busy lives that they hardly have time to figure out how.

Do your kids need to review basic math? Develop reading readiness? Figure out how to reduce fractions?

Cooperation Concentration is an easy game for parents to make themselves and use to help their kids learn, review, or reinforce all kinds of basic skills.

Basic Cooperation Concentration

You can get the hang of Cooperation Concentration by playing it with a deck of Old Maid cards or regular playing cards. After that, you should be able to make up your own sets of cards to help your children review particular skills.

If your Old Maid deck has shrunk, that’s OK. Just be sure you have 14 to 20 pairs, plus the Old Maid odd card.

If you’re using regular playing cards instead of Old Maid cards, use a Joker for the Old Maid.

Any number can play this game, but you must have at least two players.

The object of the game is to see how many pairs the players can find together before someone turns up the Old Maid.

Shuffle the deck and lay the cards out in rows, face down.

Player 1 turns over two cards. If they are a pair, he lays them aside, face up.

If they are not a pair, he replaces them face down again, and everyone tries to remember where those particular cards are located.

Player 2 then turns up another two cards, trying to find and keep a pair.

Since this is a cooperative effort, players keep the pairs in a common pile and help each other locate pairs.

When someone turns over the Old Maid, the game is over. 

Count the pairs you collected as a team and start over.

Try to see if you can collect more pairs next game, before the Old Maid shows up.

Modify the game for review

Suppose you have a first grader who needs to review the alphabet. Make alphabet cards from pieces of cardstock cut into the same size or use a stack of 3-by-5 index cards.

Make two A’s, two B’s, etc. Then make two Time cards: write the word Time or draw a clock picture on two cards.

Now play the game the same way you played it with Old Maid cards, using the Time cards to end the game like an Old Maid odd card.

Since this game has more pairs, it has two odd cards instead of one.

So this time, when you turn up the first Time card, you keep on playing, leaving the Time card face up. When you turn up the second Time card, the game ends.

One additional rule makes review and reinforcement possible:

Every time someone turns up a card, he must say its letter name out loud. When he finds a pair, he must name it correctly, or else he will not be able to keep it.

And since this game is cooperative, whenever a child doesn't know a letter, the other players tell him what it is.    

Making this game both good review and good fun requires parents to be flexible.

If your child forgot the whole alphabet over the summer and can’t remember any of it, for example, don’t waste time making him feel bad because he doesn’t know as much as you think he should. 

Just make the game simpler.

The more your child succeeds, the more he’ll want to play. And the more he plays, the more he’ll learn.

To teach the alphabet over from scratch, put most of the cards aside and start out with only five letter pairs and one Time card.

Play until your child knows those letters, then add a few new ones.

Keep adding new letters gradually.

Take as many days or weeks as your child needs with the game to learn the letters.

Add a second Time card when you get up to 15 or 16 pairs.

Modify the game to review math.

To review math, you match cards instead of pairing them. One card will show a problem (3 + 7) and its matching card will show the answer (10).

You can review addition, subtraction, multiplication, and division facts this way.  

To review fraction reduction, match an unreduced fraction (6/8) with its equivalent (3/4).

For children who are not yet abstract thinkers, always match a picture card to a number card.

For example, review numbers by matching a numeral to a picture showing that many items; review fractions by matching a written fraction with a picture showing that fraction.

Other modifications

You can make matching cards for the alphabet, too, matching uppercase letters—A, B, C—with lowercase letters—a, b, c.

Or you can teach children to recognize cursive writing by matching a printed word with its equivalent written in cursive. Players should say the word or letter out loud in order to be permitted to keep each matching pair.

Just be sure to make a Time card for every 15 to 20 matching pairs in your game. The game ends when the final Time card is turned up.

© Becky Cerling Powers 1994 updated 2024

Use with attribution only   www.beckypowers.com

For more insights from Becky Cerling Powers see her book Sticky Fingers, Sticky Minds: quick reads for helping kids thrive in the Bookstore

Holiday planning: No one offered me their place in line

Wasn’t that foolish?

I could have waited until February.

And if they didn’t, shame on them.

So…how can you tame December?

First, write down your priorities.

Second, plan with those priorities in mind

Then – it’s a free country, after all! – choose to let less important activities slide.

People drank too much and then got into loud arguments that caused hurt feelings.

Their solution?

Third, figure out your limits and accept them.

Learn to say no.

Set an early date for adult-only projects

BUT IT COMES EVERY SINGLE YEAR!