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 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 Fox and the Grapes

A Fox one day spied a beautiful bunch of ripe grapes hanging from a vine trained along the branches of a tree. The grapes seemed ready to burst with juice, and the Fox's mouth watered as he gazed longingly at them.


[Illustration]

The bunch hung from a high branch, and the Fox had to jump for it, The first time he jumped he missed it by a long way. So he walked off a short distance and took a running leap at it, only to fall short once more. Again and again he tried, but in vain.

Now he sat down and looked at the grapes in disgust.

"What a fool I am," he said. "Here I am wearing myself out to get a bunch of sour grapes that are not worth gaping for."

And off he walked very, very scornfully.

There are many who pretend to despise and belittle that which is beyond their reach.