First Grade Read Aloud Banquet



Songs for June

Tom, the Piper's Son



The Fly and the Humble Bee



Oranges and Lemons



Three Blind Mice




The Sugar-Plum Tree

Have you ever heard of the Sugar-Plum Tree?

'Tis a marvel of great renown!

It blooms on the shore of the Lollipop sea

In the garden of Shut-Eye Town;

The fruit that it bears is so wondrously sweet

(As those who have tasted it say)

That good little children have only to eat

Of that fruit to be happy next day.


When you've got to the tree, you would have a hard time

To capture the fruit which I sing;

The tree is so tall that no person could climb

To the boughs where the sugar-plums swing!

But up in that tree sits a chocolate cat,

And a gingerbread dog prowls below—

And this is the way you contrive to get at

Those sugar-plums tempting you so:


You say but the word to that gingerbread dog

And he barks with such terrible zest

That the chocolate cat is at once all agog,

As her swelling proportions attest.

And the chocolate cat goes cavorting around

From this leafy limb unto that,

And the sugar-plums tumble, of course, to the ground—

Hurrah for that chocolate cat!


There are marshmallows, gumdrops, and peppermint canes,

With stripings of scarlet or gold,

And you carry away of the treasure that rains

As much as your apron can hold!

So come, little child, cuddle closer to me

In your dainty white nightcap and gown,

And I'll rock you away to that Sugar-Plum Tree

In the garden of Shut-Eye Town.


  Monday Tuesday Wednesday Thursday Friday Saturday Sunday
Week 16 Polynesia and the King from The Story of Doctor Dolittle by Hugh Lofting How Benny West Learned To Be a Painter from Stories of Great Americans for Little Americans by Edward Eggleston The Clever Water-Adder from Among the Pond People by Clara Dillingham Pierson Little Black Sambo from Fairy Tales Too Good To Miss—Around the Fire by Lisa M. Ripperton The Story of the Argonauts from On the Shores of the Great Sea by M. B. Synge Fishing from The Filipino Twins by Lucy Fitch Perkins How Jacob Stole His Brother's Blessing from Hurlbut's Story of the Bible by Jesse Lyman Hurlbut
Lock the Dairy Door by Celia Thaxter
Spring Morning by A. A. Milne
Seven Times One by Jean Ingelow
The Moon by Robert Louis Stevenson Runaway Brook by Elizabeth Lee Follen He Who Would Thrive by Benjamin Franklin Fair To See by Christina Georgina Rossetti
First row Previous row          Next row Last row
The Aesop for Children  by Milo Winter

The Lion and the Mouse

A Lion lay asleep in the forest, his great head resting on his paws. A timid little Mouse came upon him unexpectedly, and in her fright and haste to get away, ran across the Lion's nose. Roused from his nap, the Lion laid his huge paw angrily on the tiny creature to kill her.

"Spare me!" begged the poor Mouse. "Please let me go and some day I will surely repay you."

The Lion was much amused to think that a Mouse could ever help him. But he was generous and finally let the Mouse go.

Some days later, while stalking his prey in the forest, the Lion was caught in the toils of a hunter's net. Unable to free himself, he filled the forest with his angry roaring. The Mouse knew the voice and quickly found the Lion struggling in the net. Running to one of the great ropes that bound him, she gnawed it until it parted, and soon the Lion was free.


[Illustration]

"You laughed when I said I would repay you," said the Mouse. "Now you see that even a Mouse can help a Lion."

A kindness is never wasted.