First Grade Read Aloud Banquet

Songs for December

I Saw Three Ships



The Mulberry Bush



The North Wind and the Robin



Dance a Baby

The Land of Story-Books

At evening when the lamp is lit,

Around the fire my parents sit;

They sit at home and talk and sing,

And do not play at anything.


Now, with my little gun, I crawl

All in the dark along the wall,

And follow round the forest track

Away behind the sofa back.


There, in the night, where none can spy,

All in my hunter's camp I lie,

And play at books that I have read

Till it is time to go to bed.


These are the hills, these are the woods,

These are my starry solitudes;

And there the river by whose brink

The roaring lions come to drink.


I see the others far away

As if in firelit camp they lay,

And I, like to an Indian scout,

Around their party prowled about.


So when my nurse comes in for me,

Home I return across the sea,

And go to bed with backward looks

At my dear land of Story-Books.

  Monday Tuesday Wednesday Thursday Friday Saturday Sunday
Week 18 The Leader of the Lions from The Story of Doctor Dolittle by Hugh Lofting
The Monkeys' Council from The Story of Doctor Dolittle by Hugh Lofting 		How Washington Got Out of a Trap from Stories of Great Americans for Little Americans by Edward Eggleston The Oldest Dragon-Fly Nymph from Among the Pond People by Clara Dillingham Pierson Snow-white and Rose-red from Fairy Tales Too Good To Miss—Around the Fire by Lisa M. Ripperton The Adventures of Ulysses from On the Shores of the Great Sea by M. B. Synge After the Storm from The Filipino Twins by Lucy Fitch Perkins A Midnight Wrestling Match from Hurlbut's Story of the Bible by Jesse Lyman Hurlbut
The Rain by Robert Louis Stevenson 		The Three Foxes by A. A. Milne
The Robin by Laurence Alma-Tadema 		From a Railway Carriage by Robert Louis Stevenson What Every One Knows, Anonymous A Dewdrop by Frank Dempster Sherman Brownie by Christina Georgina Rossetti
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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.