Second Grade Read Aloud Banquet

Songs for December


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 30 Pinocchio Leaves for the "Land of Boobies" from Pinocchio by Carlo Collodi The Sword of Damocles from Fifty Famous Stories Retold by James Baldwin Some Big Mouths from The Burgess Bird Book for Children by Thornton Burgess The Giant and the Birds (Part 1 of 2) from The Boy Who Knew What the Birds Said by Padraic Colum Dante's Great Poem from The Discovery of New Worlds by M. B. Synge "Understood Aunt Frances" (Part 4 of 4) from Understood Betsy by Dorothy Canfield Fisher The Shepherd Boy's Fight with the Giant from Hurlbut's Story of the Bible by Jesse Lyman Hurlbut
Building a House of Logs from Richard of Jamestown by James Otis
Keeping House from Richard of Jamestown by James Otis
Lack of Cleanliness in the Village from Richard of Jamestown by James Otis 		Some Very Small Snails from Outdoor Visits by Edith M. Patch The Boys and the Frogs from The Aesop for Children by Milo Winter I Am Happy as a King from Robinson Crusoe Written Anew for Children by James Baldwin Peter, Basil, and the Fox from Nursery Tales from Many Lands by Eleanor L. and Ada M. Skinner Four Little Scamps Plan Mischief from The Adventures of Unc' Billy Possum by Thornton Burgess Caught from The Boxcar Children by Gertrude Chandler Warner
Twinkling Bugs, Anonymous Little White Lily by George MacDonald   Columbia, the Gem of the Ocean, Anonymous The Song of the Mad Prince by Walter de la Mare An Emerald Is as Green as Grass by Christina Georgina Rossetti The Chicken's Mistake by Phoebe Cary
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The Aesop for Children  by Milo Winter

The Ants and the Grasshopper

One bright day in late autumn a family of Ants were bustling about in the warm sunshine, drying out the grain they had stored up during the summer, when a starving Grasshopper, his fiddle under his arm, came up and humbly begged for a bite to eat.

"What!" cried the Ants in surprise, "haven't you stored anything away for the winter? What in the world were you doing all last summer?"

"I didn't have time to store up any food," whined the Grasshopper; "I was so busy making music that before I knew it the summer was gone."


[Illustration]

The Ants shrugged their shoulders in disgust.

"Making music, were you?" they cried. "Very well; now dance!" And they turned their backs on the Grasshopper and went on with their work.

There's a time for work and a time for play.