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 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