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 Land of Counterpane

When I was sick and lay a-bed,

I had two pillows at my head,

And all my toys beside me lay,

To keep me happy all the day.


And sometimes for an hour or so

I watched my leaden soldiers go,

With different uniforms and drills,

Among the bed-clothes, through the hills;


And sometimes sent my ships in fleets

All up and down among the sheets;

Or brought my trees and houses out,

And planted cities all about.


I was the giant great and still

That sits upon the pillow-hill,

And sees before him, dale and plain,

The pleasant land of counterpane.


  Monday Tuesday Wednesday Thursday Friday Saturday Sunday
Week 5 My Father Meets Some Tigers from My Father's Dragon by Ruth Stiles Gannett One Little Bag of Rice from Stories of Great Americans for Little Americans by Edward Eggleston The Goose Who Wanted Her Own Way from Among the Farmyard People by Clara Dillingham Pierson How Brother Rabbit Fooled the Whale and Elephant from Fairy Tales Too Good To Miss—Around the Fire by Lisa M. Ripperton The Story of the Nile Flood from On the Shores of the Great Sea by M. B. Synge A Mountain Storm (Part 2 of 2) from The Swiss Twins by Lucy Fitch Perkins The First Baby in the World and His Brother from Hurlbut's Story of the Bible by Jesse Lyman Hurlbut
Bobby Shafto, Anonymous Puppy and I by A. A. Milne
An Old Rat's Tale by Laura E. Richards
Auntie's Skirts by Robert Louis Stevenson Winter by Philip H Savage My Bed Is a Boat by Robert Louis Stevenson Bread and Milk for Breakfast by Christina Georgina Rossetti
First row Previous row          Next row Last row
The Aesop for Children  by Milo Winter

The Frogs Who Wished for a King

The Frogs were tired of governing themselves. They had so much freedom that it had spoiled them, and they did nothing but sit around croaking in a bored manner and wishing for a government that could entertain them with the pomp and display of royalty, and rule them in a way to make them know they were being ruled. No milk and water government for them, they declared. So they sent a petition to Jupiter asking for a king.

Jupiter saw what simple and foolish creatures they were, but to keep them quiet and make them think they had a king he threw down a huge log, which fell into the water with a great splash. The Frogs hid themselves among the reeds and grasses, thinking the new king to be some fearful giant. But they soon discovered how tame and peaceable King Log was. In a short time the younger Frogs were using him for a diving platform, while the older Frogs made him a meeting place, where they complained loudly to Jupiter about the government.

To teach the Frogs a lesson the ruler of the gods now sent a Crane to be king of Frogland. The Crane proved to be a very different sort of king from old King Log. He gobbled up the poor Frogs right and left and they soon saw what fools they had been. In mournful croaks they begged Jupiter to take away the cruel tyrant before they should all be destroyed.


[Illustration]

"How now!" cried Jupiter "Are you not yet content? You have what you asked for and so you have only yourselves to blame for your misfortunes."

Be sure you can better your condition before you seek to change.