First Grade Read Aloud Banquet

Songs for April

If All the World Were Paper



The Little Cock Sparrow



Ye Song of Sixpence



My Lady's Garden

Spring

Sound the flute!

Now it's mute.

Birds delight,

Day and night.

Nightingale,

In the dale,

Lark in sky—

Merrily,

Merrily, merrily to welcome in the year.


Little boy,

Full of joy;

Little girl,

Sweet and small;

Cock does crow,

So do you;

Merry voice,

Infant noise;

Merrily, merrily to welcome in the year.


Little lamb,

Here I am;

Come and lick

My white neck;

Let me pull

Your soft wool;

Let me kiss

Your soft face;

Merrily, merrily we welcome in the year.

  Monday Tuesday Wednesday Thursday Friday Saturday Sunday
Week 14 A Message from Africa from The Story of Doctor Dolittle by Hugh Lofting Putnam and the Wolf from Stories of Great Americans for Little Americans by Edward Eggleston The Slow Little Mud Turtle from Among the Pond People by Clara Dillingham Pierson The Magic Fiddle from Fairy Tales Too Good To Miss—Up the Stairs by Lisa M. Ripperton The Story of Carthage from On the Shores of the Great Sea by M. B. Synge The Rain and the Rice-Planting from The Filipino Twins by Lucy Fitch Perkins The Story of a Journey after a Wife from Hurlbut's Story of the Bible by Jesse Lyman Hurlbut
Nursery Song by Mrs. Carter 		Water-Lilies by A. A. Milne
Sir Robin by Lucy Larcom 		Foreign Children by Robert Louis Stevenson April by J. B. Gustafson The Wind by Robert Louis Stevenson Consider by Christina Georgina Rossetti
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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.


[Illustration]

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.