First Grade Read Aloud Banquet

Songs for January

I Saw Three Ships



The Mulberry Bush



The North Wind and the Robin



Dance a Baby

The Sugar-Plum Tree

Have you ever heard of the Sugar-Plum Tree?

'Tis a marvel of great renown!

It blooms on the shore of the Lollipop sea

In the garden of Shut-Eye Town;

The fruit that it bears is so wondrously sweet

(As those who have tasted it say)

That good little children have only to eat

Of that fruit to be happy next day.


When you've got to the tree, you would have a hard time

To capture the fruit which I sing;

The tree is so tall that no person could climb

To the boughs where the sugar-plums swing!

But up in that tree sits a chocolate cat,

And a gingerbread dog prowls below—

And this is the way you contrive to get at

Those sugar-plums tempting you so:


You say but the word to that gingerbread dog

And he barks with such terrible zest

That the chocolate cat is at once all agog,

As her swelling proportions attest.

And the chocolate cat goes cavorting around

From this leafy limb unto that,

And the sugar-plums tumble, of course, to the ground—

Hurrah for that chocolate cat!


There are marshmallows, gumdrops, and peppermint canes,

With stripings of scarlet or gold,

And you carry away of the treasure that rains

As much as your apron can hold!

So come, little child, cuddle closer to me

In your dainty white nightcap and gown,

And I'll rock you away to that Sugar-Plum Tree

In the garden of Shut-Eye Town.

  Monday Tuesday Wednesday Thursday Friday Saturday Sunday
Week 6 My Father Meets a Rhinoceros from My Father's Dragon by Ruth Stiles Gannett The Story of a Wise Woman from Stories of Great Americans for Little Americans by Edward Eggleston Why the Sheep Ran Away from Among the Farmyard People by Clara Dillingham Pierson Tom Thumb from Fairy Tales Too Good To Miss—Up the Stairs by Lisa M. Ripperton In a Strange Land from On the Shores of the Great Sea by M. B. Synge The Lonely Herdsman (Part 1 of 2) from The Swiss Twins by Lucy Fitch Perkins The Great Ship That Saved Eight People from Hurlbut's Story of the Bible by Jesse Lyman Hurlbut
Precocious Piggy by Thomas Hood 		Twinkletoes by A. A. Milne
The Rock-a-By Lady by Eugene Field 		Happy Thought by Robert Louis Stevenson The Snow-Bird by Frank Dempster Sherman Twinkle, Twinkle, Little Star by Jane Taylor Can't by Christina Georgina Rossetti
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A Roundabout Turn  by Robert H. Charles

A Roundabout Turn


[Illustration]

A Toad that lived on Albury Heath

Wanted to see the World.


[Illustration]

"It isn't that I dislike the Heath,

It's a perfectly charming Heath, of course—"


[Illustration]

"All this heather, and all this gorse,

All this bracken to walk beneath,

With its feathery fronds to the sky uncurled—

It's as jolly a Heath as ever was found."


[Illustration]

"But it's flat, and the World, they say, is round.

Yes, fancy," he said, "it's round, they tell me,

And wouldn't I like to go and see!"


[Illustration]

"But there, it's a long way down the road

For a fellow that walks as slow as a Toad."


[Illustration]

"If I had a horse, I'd go," said he,

"If only I had a horse!

Who's got a horse," he cried, "to sell me?"


[Illustration]

Well, nobody had, you see.


[Illustration]

But horses came to the Heath one day,

Mettlesome steeds in brave array,

With prancing legs and staring eyes,

And crimson saddles that fall and rise

As round the galloping squadron flies,

And tents, and swings and cokernut shies,

And a hoop-la stall with many a prize,

And races, and a band, and cheering.


[Illustration]

"Hark!" said the Toad, "what's this I'm hearing?

It must be the World arrived, by the sound;

"Now I'll see if it's really round!"


[Illustration]

Off he crawled to the thick of things,

And the crowds made crawling rather tiring.

"Dear me!" he said, "I wish I'd wings!

If this is the World," said he, perspiring,

"It's inconveniently full of Feet."


[Illustration]

When a sudden voice said, "Look—how sweet!

Mummy, a toad! Let's give him a treat."


[Illustration]

"It's not very safe for him here on the ground,

So I'll put him up—"


[Illustration]

"—on the merry-go-round!"


[Illustration]

And before the Toad could answer, the floor began to slide,

The horses started prancing, and the riders settled to ride,

And they all moved faster, and the band began to play,

And away round he went with them, away and away and away.

Hooray! . . . . .


[Illustration]

So the Toad rode the Roundabout

Round and round and round;

No one minded him, he sat without a sound;

He rather liked the movement, he rather liked the tune,

He just rode the Roundabout

All the afternoon.


[Illustration]

When the time to pay came,

What did he do?

"Tuppence a ride! Tuppence a ride! How much for you?"

Some had ridden for one ride, some had ridden for two—

"Seventy-nine,"  the Toad cried;

The boy said, "Coo!"


[Illustration]

"But never you mind," the Toad replied,

"Here's an I.O.U."


[Illustration]

"And now," he said, "I'll go, thanks.

I want to get home to tea."


[Illustration]

"Another for nothing? No,  thanks,

Not  any more for me!"


[Illustration]

Home, holding the grasses,

Crawling a crooked road,


[Illustration]

Slowly there passes


[Illustration]

A very unsteady


[Illustration]

Toad.


[Illustration]

"Well, and what have you found, dear?

And what have you seen and heard?"


[Illustration]

"Is the World really round, dear?"

"Round?"  he said, "My word!

Round?"  said he; "you should feel it spin!

Roundest place I ever was in!—

Round?" he chuckled, "it's that!

But it's rather," he said with a knowing wink—

"It's rather a giddy  place, I think."


[Illustration]

"Give me a drop of the dew to drink,

And give me the Heath;

it's flat!"


[Illustration]