First Grade Read Aloud Banquet

Songs for February

Hot Cross Buns



Natural History



Pussy Cat



Warm Hands

Alone

A very old woman

Lives in yon house.

The squeak of the cricket,

The stir of the mouse,

Are all she knows

Of the earth and us.


Once she was young,

Would dance and play,

Like many another

Young popinjay;

And run to her mother

At dusk of day.


And colours bright

She delighted in;

The fiddle to hear,

And to lift her chin,

And sing as small

As a twittering wren.


But age apace

Comes at last to all;

And a lone house filled

With the cricket's call;

And the scampering mouse

In the hollow wall.

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Week 43 The Magic Art of the Great Humbug from The Wonderful Wizard of Oz by L. Frank Baum
How the Balloon Was Launched from The Wonderful Wizard of Oz by L. Frank Baum 		Longfellow as a Boy from Stories of Great Americans for Little Americans by Edward Eggleston Birds' Eggs from Seed-Babies by Margaret Warner Morley Lord Peter from Fairy Tales Too Good To Miss—Up the Stairs by Lisa M. Ripperton A Great Conflict from On the Shores of the Great Sea by M. B. Synge Judas Iscariot Day (Part 1 of 2) from The Mexican Twins by Lucy Fitch Perkins What a Wise Man Learned from an Ass (Part 2 of 2) from Hurlbut's Story of the Bible by Jesse Lyman Hurlbut
Bimble, Bamble, Bumble, Anonymous 		If I Were King by A. A. Milne
The Peddler's Caravan by William Brighty Rands 		North-west Passage by Robert Louis Stevenson Milking Time by Christina Georgina Rossetti The Elephant by Hilaire Belloc The Dog Lies in His Kennel by Christina Georgina Rossetti
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The Aesop for Children  by Milo Winter

The Fox and the Grapes

A Fox one day spied a beautiful bunch of ripe grapes hanging from a vine trained along the branches of a tree. The grapes seemed ready to burst with juice, and the Fox's mouth watered as he gazed longingly at them.


[Illustration]

The bunch hung from a high branch, and the Fox had to jump for it, The first time he jumped he missed it by a long way. So he walked off a short distance and took a running leap at it, only to fall short once more. Again and again he tried, but in vain.

Now he sat down and looked at the grapes in disgust.

"What a fool I am," he said. "Here I am wearing myself out to get a bunch of sour grapes that are not worth gaping for."

And off he walked very, very scornfully.

There are many who pretend to despise and belittle that which is beyond their reach.