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

My Shadow

I have a little shadow that goes in and out with me,

And what can be the use of him is more than I can see.

He is very, very like me from the heels up to the head;

And I see him jump before me, when I jump into my bed.


The funniest thing about him is the way he likes to grow—

Not at all like proper children, which is always very slow;

For he sometimes shoots up taller like an india-rubber ball,

And he sometimes gets so little that there's none of him at all.


He hasn't got a notion of how children ought to play,

And can only make a fool of me in every sort of way.

He stays so close beside me, he's a coward, you can see;

I'd think shame to stick to nursie as that shadow sticks to me!


One morning, very early, before the sun was up,

I rose and found the shining dew on every buttercup;

But my lazy little shadow, like an arrant sleepy-head,

Had stayed at home behind me and was fast asleep in bed.

  Monday Tuesday Wednesday Thursday Friday Saturday Sunday
Week 19 The Rarest Animal of All from The Story of Doctor Dolittle by Hugh Lofting Washington's Last Battle from Stories of Great Americans for Little Americans by Edward Eggleston The Eels' Moving Night from Among the Pond People by Clara Dillingham Pierson The Pied Piper from Fairy Tales Too Good To Miss—Around the Fire by Lisa M. Ripperton The Dawn of History from On the Shores of the Great Sea by M. B. Synge The Rooster at the Harvest Festival from The Filipino Twins by Lucy Fitch Perkins The Rich Man's Son Who Was Sold as a Slave from Hurlbut's Story of the Bible by Jesse Lyman Hurlbut
Little Cock-Sparrow, Anonymous Politeness by A. A. Milne
Baby Seed Song by Edith Nesbit
A Good Boy by Robert Louis Stevenson 		Pippa's Song by Robert Browning Autumn Fires by Robert Louis Stevenson Delight 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.