Pretty Things Lyrics
A list poem that points at one pretty thing after another: poppies, trees, lettuce leaves, red and brown pebbles, thistle-down, a curly-headed baby in a pansy-bed and white curled clouds. The last line steps back and cheers for the whole world.
Pretty Things
Pretty poppies,
Pretty trees,
Pretty little lettuce-leaves,
Pretty pebbles,
Red and brown,
Pretty floating thistle-down.
Pretty baby,
Curly head,
Standing in a pansy-bed,
Pretty clouds
All white and curled -
O the great, big pretty world!
Printed from https://nurseryrhymes.co/pretty-things/
- Type
- Poems for Children
- Written by
- Leroy F. Jackson
- Tune
- Light and quick, like pointing at things on a walk, then wide and warm on the last line
- Best for ages
- 1 to 5 years
Hand Motions and Actions
| When you sing | Do this |
|---|---|
| Pretty baby, | Pat your own head, or the head of a doll, as if feeling soft curls. |
| Pretty clouds | Wave both hands slowly above your head, curling the fingers like clouds. |
What Does Pretty Things Mean?
This poem is built like a walk where a child keeps saying "look at that". Nearly every line names one small thing and calls it pretty: poppies, trees, lettuce leaves, pebbles in red and brown, and thistle-down, the soft silky fluff that carries thistle seeds through the air. A baby with a curly head stands in a pansy-bed, a patch of garden planted with pansies, and the next picture is a sky of white, curled clouds.
The poem gets bigger as it goes. It starts with things you could hold in one hand, such as a pebble, moves on to a garden and then to the sky, and finishes by cheering for the whole great, big pretty world. Two pairs of lines rhyme in a way that is easy to hear aloud: brown with down, and curled with world.
History and Origin
This poem comes from The Peter Patter Book of Nursery Rhymes by Leroy F. Jackson, published in 1918, a collection of rhymes written by Jackson himself.
Learning Activities
- Pretty hunt: go for a short walk and let the child point out and name one pretty thing at each stop, just as the poem does.
- Add a line: after the words, take turns making up a new line that starts with the word pretty, such as pretty puddles or pretty socks.
- Pebble colours: gather a few pebbles and sort them into red ones and brown ones, as in the poem.
- Cloud watching: lie on a blanket on a clear day and describe the shapes of the clouds that drift by.