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Show Kids find new places to lead proverbial horse And on the practical side, one child wrote, "Early to bed and early to rise will get you up early and help a man get healthy and strong." A second child said, "...will get you good luck," and a third sage penned, "Early to bed and early to rise is good for you." To all of this I would add my own proverb: "Out of the mouth of babes . . ." I By WANDA S. PETERSEN If you'd like a new slant on life, ask ! a group of seven and eight-year-olds ' to write or complete some proverbs for you. I tried it when substituting at the Pleasant Grove Central Second Grade and received some lucid responses. I gave them the first half of the I proverb and asked them to complete ! it-One it-One child wrote, "You can lead a I horse to water, but you can't find any," and another completed, "...but not to grass." Still another said, ". . . but you can't lead a bee." One boy wrote, "He who laughs last laughs too much." Another said, "He who laughs last is crazy," and two others completed with, "... is a rotten egg," and ". . . shall not cry." We tried "Don't judge a book by..." and their results included "...by reading it," "...by its pictures," pic-tures," and ". . . by its words." For "Don't count your chickens before" . . .one response was, "Don't count your chickens before breakfast." break-fast." Another said, ". . . before they eat the eggs," another, "... before you pluck them." And how's this, ". . . before you eat them?" I wrote "A bird in the hand is worth" ...and one enterprising youngster added, "... a lot of money," while a more modest assessment was, ". . . worth a penny." One budding bud-ding farmer wrote, "A bird in the hand is worth two pigs and a hen," while his neighbor penned, "...nothing." I asked them how to finish, "You can't teach an old dog..." and received this bit of wisdom, ". . . when he's dead." Another said, "...until he's four," and others replied, "... to read and write," and "... to wait for his dinner." "The bigger they are," penciled one child, ". . . the noisier they are." A less kindly disposed child wrote, "The bigger they are the dumber they get." While a third child finished with ". . . the bigger the coward." One thoughtful girl wrote, "Too many cooks and you will get sick," while a thrifty child suggested, "...cost too much money," and a practical one penned, "Too many cooks are crazy." An entrepreneur commented, "A penny saved is worth just one cent," while another suggested, "...is a penny needed," and a third, probably with an eye to inflation, said, "... is nothing at all." When I wrote, .."Birds of a feather..." one smart lass wrote "... lay eggs." Another said, ". . . will not fly with just a feather," and a third commented, "...last about a week." "Time and tide," wrote a philosopher, philo-sopher, ". . . are good friends," while a reading buff wrote, "Time and tide don't match or rhyme." A born pessimist wrote, "If at first you don't succeed, you won't succeed the second time either." While the optimist wrote, "...the second time you will," and the studious suggested, sug-gested, ". . . think and think." 'Two heads are better than three," was the astute observation of one boy, while a girl suggested, 'Two heads are twins." |