First Grade Read Aloud Banquet

Songs for December

I Saw Three Ships



The Mulberry Bush



The North Wind and the Robin



Dance a Baby

All But Blind

All but blind

In his chambered hole

Gropes for worms

The four-clawed Mole.


All but blind

In the evening sky

The hooded Bat

Twirls softly by.


All but blind

In the burning day

The Barn-Owl blunders

On her way.


And blind as are

These three to me,

So blind to someone

I must be.

  Monday Tuesday Wednesday Thursday Friday Saturday Sunday
Week 36 The Queen of the Field Mice from The Wonderful Wizard of Oz by L. Frank Baum Some Boys Who Became Authors from Stories of Great Americans for Little Americans by Edward Eggleston Cradles from Seed-Babies by Margaret Warner Morley The Five Remarkable Brothers from Fairy Tales Too Good To Miss—Around the Fire by Lisa M. Ripperton Coriolanus from On the Shores of the Great Sea by M. B. Synge Twenty Years After from The Irish Twins by Lucy Fitch Perkins What Strong Drink Brought to Aaron's Sons from Hurlbut's Story of the Bible by Jesse Lyman Hurlbut
Bow-Wow-Wow, Anonymous 		The Invaders by A. A. Milne
Elf and Dormouse by Oliver Herford 		Keepsake Mill by Robert Louis Stevenson Thank You, Pretty Cow by Jane Taylor Holding Hands by Lenore M. Link Fly Away by Christina Georgina Rossetti
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The Aesop for Children  by Milo Winter

The Tortoise and the Ducks

The Tortoise, you know, carries his house on his back. No matter how hard he tries, he cannot leave home. They say that Jupiter punished him so, because he was such a lazy stay-at-home that he would not go to Jupiter's wedding, even when especially invited.

After many years, Tortoise began to wish he had gone to that wedding. When he saw how gaily the birds flew about and how the Hare and the Chipmunk and all the other animals ran nimbly by, always eager to see everything there was to be seen, the Tortoise felt very sad and discontented. He wanted to see the world too, and there he was with a house on his back and little short legs that could hardly drag him along.

One day he met a pair of Ducks and told them all his trouble.

"We can help you to see the world," said the Ducks. "Take hold of this stick with your teeth and we will carry you far up in the air where you can see the whole countryside. But keep quiet or you will be sorry."

The Tortoise was very glad indeed. He seized the stick firmly with his teeth, the two Ducks took hold of it one at each end, and away they sailed up toward the clouds.


[Illustration]

Just then a Crow flew by. He was very much astonished at the strange sight and cried:

"This must surely be the King of Tortoises!"

"Why certainly—" began the Tortoise.

But as he opened his mouth to say these foolish words he lost his hold on the stick, and down he fell to the ground, where he was dashed to pieces on a rock.

Foolish curiosity and vanity often lead to misfortune.