{"id":485,"date":"2011-03-13T18:36:00","date_gmt":"2011-03-13T18:36:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/90f5714f-5d3f-4765-8ae9-05e9780333b0"},"modified":"2011-03-13T18:36:00","modified_gmt":"2011-03-13T18:36:00","slug":"go-slow-go-far","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/thewonderchildblog.com\/?p=485","title":{"rendered":"Go Slow, Go Far"},"content":{"rendered":"

 <\/a>       <\/a>       <\/a>        <\/a><\/p>\n

Nine years ago I was teaching first grade and I took to the practice of writing each of my students a poem for their birthday.  I didn\u2019t believe in giving meaningless homework to first graders so instead I would give them tasks like: memorize their birthday poem\u2014learn it by heart so that it lives there.  Then I had them recite their poem once a week on the day closest to when they were born.  All of the poems I wrote for those first graders were about seeds and about growing.  This particular poem was written for a little girl who desperately wanted to learn to read and was feeling bad that things weren\u2019t moving as fast as she thought they should be.   It\u2019s amazing how the poems I wrote for those first graders still teach me things today.   <\/font><\/p>\n

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In husk and shell a maple tree slept<\/font><\/p>\n

Deep through winter, quiet and blessed.<\/font><\/p>\n

She dreamed of swaying through morns and eves,<\/font><\/p>\n

And standing with starlight draped over her leaves.<\/font><\/p>\n

 <\/font><\/p>\n

\u201cI want to sprout,\u201d the maple tree said,<\/font><\/p>\n

And a good kindly ground hog over heard from his bed.<\/font><\/p>\n

\u201cIn due time, dear seedling, for grace is not rushed.\u201d<\/font><\/p>\n

And he fell back to sleep, in the snow-dappled hush.<\/font><\/p>\n

 <\/font><\/p>\n

So the maple tree waited, impatient and weary,<\/font><\/p>\n

And dozed off to sleep so as not to feel dreary.<\/font><\/p>\n

One day the sky cried warm tears of joy<\/font><\/p>\n

And springtime returned for each girl and boy.<\/font><\/p>\n

 <\/font><\/p>\n

The seedling arose, trembling and proud,<\/font><\/p>\n

Reaching for heaven through rolling white clouds.<\/font><\/p>\n

Copyright Joseph Anthony of the Wonder Child Blog<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

                        Nine years ago I was teaching first grade and I took to the practice of writing each of my students a poem for their birthday.  I didn\u2019t believe in giving meaningless homework to first graders so instead I would give them tasks like: memorize their birthday poem\u2014learn it by heart so […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[12],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/thewonderchildblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/485"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/thewonderchildblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/thewonderchildblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/thewonderchildblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/thewonderchildblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=485"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/thewonderchildblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/485\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/thewonderchildblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=485"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/thewonderchildblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=485"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/thewonderchildblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=485"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}