Every fall, one of my favorite units to teach starts with a hymn instead of a demo. We sing through a verse or two of "All Things Bright and Beautiful," and I ask my students a simple question: if God made "all creatures great and small," does that include the ones we'd usually swat away?
Before we ever touch a template, we talk about who actually wrote those words. "All Things Bright and Beautiful" was written by Cecil Frances Alexander, an Irish poet and hymn writer who published it in 1848 in a hymnbook written for children. Watch the video: the story behind Cecil Frances Alexander before you start — it gives the hymn a real author instead of just a name on a page, and sets up why we're pairing her poem with a paintbrush.
Then we turn from her words to a creature most of us walk right past. Moths get a bad reputation — they eat sweaters, they show up at porch lights, they're "just" the plainer cousin of the butterfly. But hold one still under a light and you'll find the same wisdom the psalmist is pointing to — radial symmetry, layered color, a design no student could improve on with a full box of colored pencils.
How the project works
- Read Psalm 104:24 together and sing (or listen to) "All Things Bright and Beautiful."
- Watch the video on Cecil Frances Alexander, then sketch moth wing patterns from observation, not imagination.
- Trace and cut the moth template, working in symmetrical pairs on each wing.
- Build the body in the round using the sculpture template, so the finished moth can perch, not just hang flat.
- Display the class "swarm" together — it's a striking bulletin board, and a quiet reminder of how much variety one Creator can make.
What's one small, easily-overlooked thing in creation that might actually be evidence of God's wisdom, if you looked closely enough?
The full moth template, grading rubric, and lesson slides will be part of my TPT shop — join the list below and I'll let you know the day it opens.