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 Moon's the North Wind's Cooky

The Moon's the North Wind's cooky.

He bites it, day by day,

Until there's but a rim of scraps

That crumble all away.


The South Wind is a baker.

He kneads clouds in his den,

And bakes a crisp new moon that . . . greedy

North . . . Wind . . . eats . . . again! 

  Monday Tuesday Wednesday Thursday Friday Saturday Sunday
Week 4 My Father Finds the River from My Father's Dragon by Ruth Stiles Gannett William Penn and the Indians from Stories of Great Americans for Little Americans by Edward Eggleston The Chicken Who Wouldn't Eat Gravel from Among the Farmyard People by Clara Dillingham Pierson Spindle, Shuttle, and Needle from Fairy Tales Too Good To Miss—Up the Stairs by Lisa M. Ripperton Joseph in Egypt from On the Shores of the Great Sea by M. B. Synge A Mountain Storm (Part 1 of 2) from The Swiss Twins by Lucy Fitch Perkins Saint Bridget from Our Island Saints by Amy Steedman
London Bridge, Anonymous 		The Christening by A. A. Milne
The Snow Bird by F. C. Woodworth 		Picture-Books in Winter by Robert Louis Stevenson A Chill by Christina Georgina Rossetti Little Things by Julia Fletcher Carney Hope by Christina Georgina Rossetti
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The Aesop for Children  by Milo Winter

The Town Mouse and the Country Mouse

A Town Mouse once visited a relative who lived in the country. For lunch the Country Mouse served wheat stalks, roots, and acorns, with a dash of cold water for drink. The Town Mouse ate very sparingly, nibbling a little of this and a little of that, and by her manner making it very plain that she ate the simple food only to be polite.


[Illustration]

After the meal the friends had a long talk, or rather the Town Mouse talked about her life in the city while the Country Mouse listened. They then went to bed in a cozy nest in the hedgerow and slept in quiet and comfort until morning. In her sleep the Country Mouse dreamed she was a Town Mouse with all the luxuries and delights of city life that her friend had described for her. So the next day when the Town Mouse asked the Country Mouse to go home with her to the city, she gladly said yes.

When they reached the mansion in which the Town Mouse lived, they found on the table in the dining room the leavings of a very fine banquet. There were sweetmeats and jellies, pastries, delicious cheeses, indeed, the most tempting foods that a Mouse can imagine. But just as the Country Mouse was about to nibble a dainty bit of pastry, she heard a Cat mew loudly and scratch at the door. In great fear the Mice scurried to a hiding place, where they lay quite still for a long time, hardly daring to breathe. When at last they ventured back to the feast, the door opened suddenly and in came the servants to clear the table, followed by the House Dog.


[Illustration]

The Town Mouse and the Country Mouse

The Country Mouse stopped in the Town Mouse's den only long enough to pick up her carpet bag and umbrella.

"You may have luxuries and dainties that I have not," she said as she hurried away, "but I prefer my plain food and simple life in the country with the peace and security that go with it."

Poverty with security is better than plenty in the midst of fear and uncertainty.