First Grade Read Aloud Banquet

Songs for February

Hot Cross Buns



Natural History



Pussy Cat



Warm Hands

The Land of Nod

From breakfast on through all the day

At home among my friends I stay,

But every night I go abroad

Afar into the land of Nod.


All by myself I have to go,

With none to tell me what to do—

All alone beside the streams

And up the mountain-sides of dreams.


The strangest things are there for me,

Both things to eat and things to see,

And many frightening sights abroad

Till morning in the land of Nod.


Try as I like to find the way,

I never can get back by day,

Nor can remember plain and clear

The curious music that I hear.

  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 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.