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 Cow

The friendly cow all red and white,

I love with all my heart:

She gives me cream with all her might,

To eat with apple-tart.


She wanders lowing here and there,

And yet she cannot stray,

All in the pleasant open air,

The pleasant light of day;


And blown by all the winds that pass

And wet with all the showers,

She walks among the meadow grass

And eats the meadow flowers.

  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 Tortoise and the Ducks

The Tortoise, you know, carries his house on his back. No matter how hard he tries, he cannot leave home. They say that Jupiter punished him so, because he was such a lazy stay-at-home that he would not go to Jupiter's wedding, even when especially invited.

After many years, Tortoise began to wish he had gone to that wedding. When he saw how gaily the birds flew about and how the Hare and the Chipmunk and all the other animals ran nimbly by, always eager to see everything there was to be seen, the Tortoise felt very sad and discontented. He wanted to see the world too, and there he was with a house on his back and little short legs that could hardly drag him along.

One day he met a pair of Ducks and told them all his trouble.

"We can help you to see the world," said the Ducks. "Take hold of this stick with your teeth and we will carry you far up in the air where you can see the whole countryside. But keep quiet or you will be sorry."

The Tortoise was very glad indeed. He seized the stick firmly with his teeth, the two Ducks took hold of it one at each end, and away they sailed up toward the clouds.


[Illustration]

Just then a Crow flew by. He was very much astonished at the strange sight and cried:

"This must surely be the King of Tortoises!"

"Why certainly—" began the Tortoise.

But as he opened his mouth to say these foolish words he lost his hold on the stick, and down he fell to the ground, where he was dashed to pieces on a rock.

Foolish curiosity and vanity often lead to misfortune.