First Grade Read Aloud Banquet

Songs for December

I Saw Three Ships



The Mulberry Bush



The North Wind and the Robin



Dance a Baby

My Shadow

I have a little shadow that goes in and out with me,

And what can be the use of him is more than I can see.

He is very, very like me from the heels up to the head;

And I see him jump before me, when I jump into my bed.


The funniest thing about him is the way he likes to grow—

Not at all like proper children, which is always very slow;

For he sometimes shoots up taller like an india-rubber ball,

And he sometimes gets so little that there's none of him at all.


He hasn't got a notion of how children ought to play,

And can only make a fool of me in every sort of way.

He stays so close beside me, he's a coward, you can see;

I'd think shame to stick to nursie as that shadow sticks to me!


One morning, very early, before the sun was up,

I rose and found the shining dew on every buttercup;

But my lazy little shadow, like an arrant sleepy-head,

Had stayed at home behind me and was fast asleep in bed.

  Monday Tuesday Wednesday Thursday Friday Saturday Sunday
Week 41 The Winged Monkeys from The Wonderful Wizard of Oz by L. Frank Baum A Dinner on the Ice from Stories of Great Americans for Little Americans by Edward Eggleston Frogs from Seed-Babies by Margaret Warner Morley The Little Rabbit Who Wanted Red Wings from Fairy Tales Too Good To Miss—Up the Stairs by Lisa M. Ripperton Alexander's City from On the Shores of the Great Sea by M. B. Synge Tonio's Bad Day (Part 1 of 2) from The Mexican Twins by Lucy Fitch Perkins How the Long Journey of the Israelites Came to an End from Hurlbut's Story of the Bible by Jesse Lyman Hurlbut
Will You Be My Little Wife? by Kate Greenaway 		The Alchemist by A. A. Milne
The Swing by Robert Louis Stevenson 		Good and Bad Children by Robert Louis Stevenson
Who Has Seen the Wind? by Christina Georgina Rossetti 		Seal Lullaby by Rudyard Kipling Head without Hair by Christina Georgina Rossetti
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The Aesop for Children  by Milo Winter

The Ass and the Load of Salt

A Merchant, driving his Ass homeward from the seashore with a heavy load of salt, came to a river crossed by a shallow ford. They had crossed this river many times before without accident, but this time the Ass slipped and fell when halfway over. And when the Merchant at last got him to his feet, much of the salt had melted away. Delighted to find how much lighter his burden had become, the Ass finished the journey very gayly.

Next day the Merchant went for another load of salt. On the way home the Ass, remembering what had happened at the ford, purposely let himself fall into the water, and again got rid of most of his burden.

The angry Merchant immediately turned about and drove the Ass back to the seashore, where he loaded him with two great baskets of sponges. At the ford the Ass again tumbled over; but when he had scrambled to his feet, it was a very disconsolate Ass that dragged himself homeward under a load ten times heavier than before.

The same measures will not suit all circumstances.


[Illustration]

The Ass and the Load of Salt