Second Grade Read Aloud Banquet

Songs for April

Little Jack Horner

The Little Disaster

My Pretty Maid

The Ploughboy in Luck

Time To Rise

A birdie with a yellow bill

Hopped upon my window sill,

Cocked his shining eye and said:

"Ain't you 'shamed, you sleepy-head!"

	Monday	Tuesday	Wednesday	Thursday	Friday	Saturday	Sunday
Week 25	Pinocchio Promises To Be Good and Studious from Pinocchio by Carlo Collodi	The Story of Regulus from Fifty Famous Stories Retold by James Baldwin	Some Homes in the Green Forest from The Burgess Bird Book for Children by Thornton Burgess	Bloom-of-Youth and the Witch of the Elders (Part 1 of 2) from The Boy Who Knew What the Birds Said by Padraic Colum	Frederick Barbarossa from The Discovery of New Worlds by M. B. Synge	Betsy Has a Birthday (Part 2 of 3) from Understood Betsy by Dorothy Canfield Fisher	The Tall Man Who Was Chosen King from Hurlbut's Story of the Bible by Jesse Lyman Hurlbut
	A Variety of Wild Game from Richard of Jamestown by James Otis The Tempest from Richard of Jamestown by James Otis The New Country Sighted from Richard of Jamestown by James Otis	The Hermit Crab from Seaside and Wayside, Book One by Julia McNair Wright	The Frogs Who Wished for a King from The Aesop for Children by Milo Winter	I Become a Potter from Robinson Crusoe Written Anew for Children by James Baldwin	The Travels of a Fox from Nursery Tales from Many Lands by Eleanor L. and Ada M. Skinner	Reddy Fox Thinks He Sees a Ghost from The Adventures of Unc' Billy Possum by Thornton Burgess	Cherry Picking from The Boxcar Children by Gertrude Chandler Warner
	A Boy's Song by James Hogg	The Cow by Robert Louis Stevenson		The Pasture by Robert Frost	In Vain by Walter de la Mare	Wishing by William Allingham	Ariel's Song from The Tempest by William Shakespeare

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.

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.