First Grade Read Aloud Banquet

Songs for December

I Saw Three Ships



The Mulberry Bush



The North Wind and the Robin



Dance a Baby



Elf and Dormouse

Under a toadstool

Crept a wee Elf,

Out of the rain

To shelter himself.


Under the toadstool,

Sound asleep,

Sat a big Dormouse

All in a heap.


Trembled the wee Elf

Frightened, and yet

Fearing to fly away

Lest he get wet.


To the next shelter

Maybe a mile

Sudden the wee Elf

Smiled a wee smile.


Tugged till the toadstool

Toppled in two

Holding it over him

Gayly he flew.


Soon he was safe home,

Dry as could be.

Soon woke the Dormouse

"Good gracious me!


Where is my toadstool!"

Loud he lamented,

And that's how umbrellas

First were invented.

  Monday Tuesday Wednesday Thursday Friday Saturday Sunday
Week 14 A Message from Africa from The Story of Doctor Dolittle by Hugh Lofting Putnam and the Wolf from Stories of Great Americans for Little Americans by Edward Eggleston The Slow Little Mud Turtle from Among the Pond People by Clara Dillingham Pierson The Magic Fiddle from Fairy Tales Too Good To Miss—Up the Stairs by Lisa M. Ripperton The Story of Carthage from On the Shores of the Great Sea by M. B. Synge The Rain and the Rice-Planting from The Filipino Twins by Lucy Fitch Perkins The Story of a Journey after a Wife from Hurlbut's Story of the Bible by Jesse Lyman Hurlbut
Nursery Song by Mrs. Carter 		Water-Lilies by A. A. Milne
Sir Robin by Lucy Larcom 		Foreign Children by Robert Louis Stevenson April by J. B. Gustafson The Wind by Robert Louis Stevenson Consider by Christina Georgina Rossetti
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The Aesop for Children  by Milo Winter

The Ass and the Load of Salt

A Merchant, driving his Ass homeward from the seashore with a heavy load of salt, came to a river crossed by a shallow ford. They had crossed this river many times before without accident, but this time the Ass slipped and fell when halfway over. And when the Merchant at last got him to his feet, much of the salt had melted away. Delighted to find how much lighter his burden had become, the Ass finished the journey very gayly.

Next day the Merchant went for another load of salt. On the way home the Ass, remembering what had happened at the ford, purposely let himself fall into the water, and again got rid of most of his burden.

The angry Merchant immediately turned about and drove the Ass back to the seashore, where he loaded him with two great baskets of sponges. At the ford the Ass again tumbled over; but when he had scrambled to his feet, it was a very disconsolate Ass that dragged himself homeward under a load ten times heavier than before.

The same measures will not suit all circumstances.


[Illustration]

The Ass and the Load of Salt