First Grade Read Aloud Banquet



Songs for February

Hot Cross Buns



Natural History



Pussy Cat



Warm Hands




The Sugar-Plum Tree

Have you ever heard of the Sugar-Plum Tree?

'Tis a marvel of great renown!

It blooms on the shore of the Lollipop sea

In the garden of Shut-Eye Town;

The fruit that it bears is so wondrously sweet

(As those who have tasted it say)

That good little children have only to eat

Of that fruit to be happy next day.


When you've got to the tree, you would have a hard time

To capture the fruit which I sing;

The tree is so tall that no person could climb

To the boughs where the sugar-plums swing!

But up in that tree sits a chocolate cat,

And a gingerbread dog prowls below—

And this is the way you contrive to get at

Those sugar-plums tempting you so:


You say but the word to that gingerbread dog

And he barks with such terrible zest

That the chocolate cat is at once all agog,

As her swelling proportions attest.

And the chocolate cat goes cavorting around

From this leafy limb unto that,

And the sugar-plums tumble, of course, to the ground—

Hurrah for that chocolate cat!


There are marshmallows, gumdrops, and peppermint canes,

With stripings of scarlet or gold,

And you carry away of the treasure that rains

As much as your apron can hold!

So come, little child, cuddle closer to me

In your dainty white nightcap and gown,

And I'll rock you away to that Sugar-Plum Tree

In the garden of Shut-Eye Town.


  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 Frogs and the Ox

An Ox came down to a reedy pool to drink. As he splashed heavily into the water, he crushed a young Frog into the mud. The old Frog soon missed the little one and asked his brothers and sisters what had become of him.

"A great big  monster," said one of them, "stepped on little brother with one of his huge feet!"

"Big, was he!" said the old Frog, puffing herself up. "Was he as big as this?"


[Illustration]

"Oh, much  bigger!" they cried.

The Frog puffed up still more. "He could not have been bigger than this," she said. But the little Frogs all declared that the monster was much, much  bigger and the old Frog kept puffing herself out more and more until, all at once, she burst.

Do not attempt the impossible.