First Grade Read Aloud Banquet

Songs for February

Hot Cross Buns



Natural History



Pussy Cat



Warm Hands



Elf and Dormouse

Under a toadstool

Crept a wee Elf,

Out of the rain

To shelter himself.


Under the toadstool,

Sound asleep,

Sat a big Dormouse

All in a heap.


Trembled the wee Elf

Frightened, and yet

Fearing to fly away

Lest he get wet.


To the next shelter

Maybe a mile

Sudden the wee Elf

Smiled a wee smile.


Tugged till the toadstool

Toppled in two

Holding it over him

Gayly he flew.


Soon he was safe home,

Dry as could be.

Soon woke the Dormouse

"Good gracious me!


Where is my toadstool!"

Loud he lamented,

And that's how umbrellas

First were invented.

  Monday Tuesday Wednesday Thursday Friday Saturday Sunday
Week 20 The Black Prince from The Story of Doctor Dolittle by Hugh Lofting Marion's Tower from Stories of Great Americans for Little Americans by Edward Eggleston The Crayfish Mother from Among the Pond People by Clara Dillingham Pierson
Two Little Crayfishes Quarrel from Among the Pond People by Clara Dillingham Pierson 		The Ragged Pedlar from Fairy Tales Too Good To Miss—Around the Fire by Lisa M. Ripperton The Fall of Tyre from On the Shores of the Great Sea by M. B. Synge The Prize from The Filipino Twins by Lucy Fitch Perkins Saint Augustine of Canterbury from In God's Garden by Amy Steedman
The Light-Hearted Fairy, Anonymous 		Jonathan Jo by A. A. Milne
Grasshopper Green, Anonymous 		Marching Song by Robert Louis Stevenson The City Child by Alfred Lord Tennyson Rock-a-Bye, Baby, Mother Goose A Frisky Lamb by Christina Georgina Rossetti
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The Aesop for Children  by Milo Winter

The Milkmaid and Her Pail

A Milkmaid had been out to milk the cows and was returning from the field with the shining milk pail balanced nicely on her head. As she walked along, her pretty head was busy with plans for the days to come.

"This good, rich milk," she reused, "will give me plenty of cream to churn. The butter I make I will take to market, and with the money I get for it I will buy a lot of eggs for hatching. How nice it will be when they are all hatched and the yard is full of fine young chicks. Then when May day comes I will sell them, and with the money I'll buy a lovely new dress to wear to the fair. All the young men will look at me. They will come and try to make love to me,—but I shall very quickly send them about their business!"

As she thought of how she would settle that matter, she tossed her head scornfully, and down fell the pail of milk to the ground. And all the milk flowed out, and with it vanished butter and eggs and chicks and new dress and all the milkmaid's pride.

Do not count your chickens before they are hatched.


[Illustration]