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 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 21 Medicine and Magic from The Story of Doctor Dolittle by Hugh Lofting Clark and His Men from Stories of Great Americans for Little Americans by Edward Eggleston The Lucky Mink from Among the Pond People by Clara Dillingham Pierson The Golden Goose from Fairy Tales Too Good To Miss—Around the Fire by Lisa M. Ripperton The Rise of Carthage from On the Shores of the Great Sea by M. B. Synge Grannie Malone and the Twins from The Irish Twins by Lucy Fitch Perkins From the Prison to the Palace from Hurlbut's Story of the Bible by Jesse Lyman Hurlbut
A Good Boy by Robert Louis Stevenson
At the Zoo by A. A. Milne
Minnie and Mattie by Christina Georgina Rossetti
Pirate Story by Robert Louis Stevenson The Shepherd by William Blake Over in the Meadow by Olive A. Wadsworth If All Were Rain by Christina Georgina Rossetti
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The Aesop for Children  by Milo Winter

The Crow and the Pitcher

In a spell of dry weather, when the Birds could find very little to drink, a thirsty Crow found a pitcher with a little water in it. But the pitcher was high and had a narrow neck, and no matter how he tried, the Crow could not reach the water. The poor thing felt as if he must die of thirst.

Then an idea came to him. Picking up some small pebbles, he dropped them into the pitcher one by one. With each pebble the water rose a little higher until at last it was near enough so he could drink.

In a pinch a good use of our wits may help us out.


[Illustration]