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 Land of Story-Books

At evening when the lamp is lit,

Around the fire my parents sit;

They sit at home and talk and sing,

And do not play at anything.


Now, with my little gun, I crawl

All in the dark along the wall,

And follow round the forest track

Away behind the sofa back.


There, in the night, where none can spy,

All in my hunter's camp I lie,

And play at books that I have read

Till it is time to go to bed.


These are the hills, these are the woods,

These are my starry solitudes;

And there the river by whose brink

The roaring lions come to drink.


I see the others far away

As if in firelit camp they lay,

And I, like to an Indian scout,

Around their party prowled about.


So when my nurse comes in for me,

Home I return across the sea,

And go to bed with backward looks

At my dear land of Story-Books.

  Monday Tuesday Wednesday Thursday Friday Saturday Sunday
Week 33 The Cowardly Lion from The Wonderful Wizard of Oz by L. Frank Baum How Audubon Came To Know about Birds from Stories of Great Americans for Little Americans by Edward Eggleston The Twin Lambs from Among the Farmyard People by Clara Dillingham Pierson The Little Brother and Sister from Fairy Tales Too Good To Miss—Around the Fire by Lisa M. Ripperton Retreat of the Ten Thousand from On the Shores of the Great Sea by M. B. Synge Sunday from The Irish Twins by Lucy Fitch Perkins How Aaron Made a Golden Calf and What Became of It from Hurlbut's Story of the Bible by Jesse Lyman Hurlbut
Little Brown Bobby by Laura E. Richards 		Little Bo-Peep and Little Boy Blue by A. A. Milne
Rockaby, Lullaby by Josiah Gilbert Holland 		The Gardener by Robert Louis Stevenson The Dandelion, Anonymous Where Go the Boats? by Robert Louis Stevenson Lie A-Bed by Christina Georgina Rossetti
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The Aesop for Children  by Milo Winter

The Hare and the Tortoise

A Hare was making fun of the Tortoise one day for being so slow.

"Do you ever get anywhere?" he asked with a mocking laugh.

"Yes," replied the Tortoise, "and I get there sooner than you think. I'll run you a race and prove it."

The Hare was much amused at the idea of running a race with the Tortoise, but for the fun of the thing he agreed. So the Fox, who had consented to act as judge, marked the distance and started the runners off.

The Hare was soon far out of sight, and to make the Tortoise feel very deeply how ridiculous it was for him to try a race with a Hare, he lay down beside the course to take a nap until the Tortoise should catch up.

The Tortoise meanwhile kept going slowly but steadily, and, after a time, passed the place where the Hare was sleeping. But the Hare slept on very peacefully; and when at last he did wake up, the Tortoise was near the goal. The Hare now ran his swiftest, but he could not overtake the Tortoise in time.

The race is not always to the swift.


[Illustration]

The Hare and the Tortoise