First Grade Read Aloud Banquet

Songs for December

I Saw Three Ships



The Mulberry Bush



The North Wind and the Robin



Dance a Baby



Elf and Dormouse

Under a toadstool

Crept a wee Elf,

Out of the rain

To shelter himself.


Under the toadstool,

Sound asleep,

Sat a big Dormouse

All in a heap.


Trembled the wee Elf

Frightened, and yet

Fearing to fly away

Lest he get wet.


To the next shelter

Maybe a mile

Sudden the wee Elf

Smiled a wee smile.


Tugged till the toadstool

Toppled in two

Holding it over him

Gayly he flew.


Soon he was safe home,

Dry as could be.

Soon woke the Dormouse

"Good gracious me!


Where is my toadstool!"

Loud he lamented,

And that's how umbrellas

First were invented.

  Monday Tuesday Wednesday Thursday Friday Saturday Sunday
Week 40 The Rescue from The Wonderful Wizard of Oz by L. Frank Baum Doctor Kane in the Frozen Sea from Stories of Great Americans for Little Americans by Edward Eggleston Bumble-Bees from Seed-Babies by Margaret Warner Morley Wondering Jack from Fairy Tales Too Good To Miss—Up the Stairs by Lisa M. Ripperton Conquest of India from On the Shores of the Great Sea by M. B. Synge The Party from The Mexican Twins by Lucy Fitch Perkins Saint Francis of Assisi (Part 2 of 2) from In God's Garden by Amy Steedman
Some Little Mice, Anonymous 		In the Fashion by A. A. Milne Swallow, Swallow, Anonymous Autumn Fires by Robert Louis Stevenson To Mother Fairie by Alice Cary Come, Little Leaves by George Cooper Flint by Christina Georgina Rossetti
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The Aesop for Children  by Milo Winter

The North Wind and the Sun

The North Wind and the Sun had a quarrel about which of them was the stronger. While they were disputing with much heat and bluster, a Traveler passed along the road wrapped in a cloak.

"Let us agree," said the Sun, "that he is the stronger who can strip that Traveler of his cloak."

"Very well," growled the North Wind, and at once sent a cold, howling blast against the Traveler.


[Illustration]

With the first gust of wind the ends of the cloak whipped about the Traveler's body. But he immediately wrapped it closely around him, and the harder the Wind blew, the tighter he held it to him. The North Wind tore angrily at the cloak, but all his efforts were in vain.

Then the Sun began to shine. At first his beams were gentle, and in the pleasant warmth after the bitter cold of the North Wind, the Traveler unfastened his cloak and let it hang loosely from his shoulders. The Sun's rays grew warmer and warmer. The man took off his cap and mopped his brow. At last he became so heated that he pulled off his cloak, and, to escape the blazing sunshine, threw himself down in the welcome shade of a tree by the roadside.

Gentleness and kind persuasion win where force and bluster fail.


[Illustration]