First Grade Read Aloud Banquet



Songs for May

Jack and Jill



King Arthur



Lavender's Blue



Ye Frog and Ye Crow




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 35 The Deadly Poppy Field from The Wonderful Wizard of Oz by L. Frank Baum Hunting a Panther from Stories of Great Americans for Little Americans by Edward Eggleston More about Nuts from Seed-Babies by Margaret Warner Morley The Iron Stove from Fairy Tales Too Good To Miss—Around the Fire by Lisa M. Ripperton How Horatius Kept the Bridge from On the Shores of the Great Sea by M. B. Synge Mr. McQueen Pays the Rent from The Irish Twins by Lucy Fitch Perkins How They Worshipped God in the Tabernacle from Hurlbut's Story of the Bible by Jesse Lyman Hurlbut
A Farmer Went Riding, Anonymous
Halfway Down by A. A. Milne
Old Dame Cricket, Anonymous
Farewell to the Farm by Robert Louis Stevenson An Autumn Riddle, Anonymous O Lady Moon by Christina Georgina Rossetti Ferry Me by Christina Georgina Rossetti
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The Aesop for Children  by Milo Winter

The Goose and the Golden Egg

There was once a Countryman who possessed the most wonderful Goose you can imagine, for every day when he visited the nest, the Goose had laid a beautiful, glittering, golden egg.


[Illustration]

The Goose and the Golden Egg

The Countryman took the eggs to market and soon began to get rich. But it was not long before he grew impatient with the Goose because she gave him only a single golden egg a day. He was not getting rich fast enough.

Then one day, after he had finished counting his money, the idea came to him that he could get all the golden eggs at once by killing the Goose and cutting it open. But when the deed was done, not a single golden egg did he find, and his precious Goose was dead.

Those who have plenty want more and so lose all they have.