FIRST YEAR
FIRST WEEK
Monday
Story, to be told to the children, and retold by them:
THE WOODPECKER
An old lady lived on a hill.
She was very small, and she always wore a black dress and a large white apron with big bows behind.
On her head she wore the queerest little red bonnet that you ever saw.
The little old lady grew very selfish as the years went by. People said this was because she thought of no one but herself.
One morning as she was baking cakes, a tired, hungry old man came up to her door.
“My good woman,” said he, “will you give me one of your cakes? I am very hungry. I have no money, but whatever you first wish for you shall have.”
The old lady looked at her cakes and thought that they were too large to give away. So she broke off a small bit of dough and put it into the oven to bake.
When it was done she thought that this one was too nice and brown for a beggar. So she baked a smaller cake, and then a still smaller one, but each came out of the oven as nice and as brown as the first.
At last she took a piece of dough as small as the head of a pin. Even this, when it was baked, was as large and as fine as the others. So the old lady put all the cakes on the shelf and offered the old man a crust of dry bread.
The old man only looked at her, and before the old lady could wink, he was gone.
The old lady thought a great deal about what she had done. She knew it was very wrong.
“I wish I were a bird,” she said; “I would fly to him with the largest cake I have.”
As she spoke, she felt herself growing smaller and smaller. Suddenly the wind picked her up and carried her up the chimney.
When she came out she still had on her red bonnet and black dress. You could see her white apron with the big bows. But she was a bird, just as she had wished to be.
She was a wise bird, and at once she began to pick her food out of the hard wood of a tree. As people saw her at work, they called her the red-headed woodpecker.
Tuesday
Have the children tell the story of the red-headed woodpecker.
Wednesday
Have the children play the story of the woodpecker as a game.
Thursday
Write the word woodpecker.
Friday
Write: The Woodpecker has a red head.
SECOND WEEK
Monday
Have the children write the words omitted:
Old —— Hubbard
Went to the —— board
To get her poor —— a bone.
But when she got ——,
The —— board was bare,
And so the poor —— had none.
Tuesday
Have the children give orally all the words they can think of that rhyme with dog. Write these in a list on the blackboard, and use them for drills in phonics.
Wednesday
Have the date and the word December written by the children.
Thursday
To be committed to memory:
WHAT MAKES CHRISTMAS
Little wishes on white wings,
Little gifts—such tiny things—
Just one little heart that sings,
Make a Merry Christmas.
—Dorothy Howe
Friday
Have the children write: Merry Christmas.
THIRD WEEK
Monday
To be recited by the teacher and acted out by the children, as a game:
WHEN SANTA CLAUS COMES
Merrily, merrily, merrily, O,
The reindeer prances across the snow;
We hear their tinkling silver bells,
Whose merry music softly tells
Old Santa Claus is coming.
Merrily, merrily, merrily, O,
The evergreens in the woodland grow;
They rustle gently in the breeze;
O, don’t you think the Christmas trees
Know Santa Claus is coming?
Merrily, merrily, merrily, O,
We’ve hung our stockings in a row;
Into our beds we softly creep,
Just shut our eyes and go to sleep—
And wait—for Santa Claus is coming.
—Selected
Tuesday
Story for oral reproduction:
BABY BUNTING’S FIRST CHRISTMAS
Baby Bunting was ten months old before she had a Christmas. When the first Christmas came, she didn’t know what it meant. When she saw the tree all covered with candles and apples and little baskets of candy, she smiled, and then laughed, and then crowed out loud. She shook her fat hands at the pretty sight, while Father and Mother and Sister Nora danced around her baby carriage.
Then they began to take the presents off the tree. There was a fine clock for Mother and a pair of slippers for Father. Sister Nora had a beautiful doll.
Baby Bunting herself had a warm little muff, some dainty socks, a pair of baby shoes, some picture books, and so many presents besides that it would take too long to tell about them all.
Sister Nora was happy with her big wax doll. She named her Sally Bunting, and brought her to the carriage to make a call on her sister Baby Bunting.
Baby was so pleased at this, that she almost talked. It seemed to Nora as if she really did talk to Sally. Perhaps Sally, the baby doll, could hear this talk better than anyone else.
I am sure Baby Bunting was saying that this was the best Christmas she had seen in ten months.
—Adapted
Wednesday
Have the children tell the story of “Baby Bunting’s First Christmas.”
Thursday
To be committed to memory:
CHRISTMAS SECRETS
Secrets big and secrets small,
On the eve of Christmas.
Such keen ears has every wall,
That we whisper, one and all,
On the eve of Christmas.
Secrets upstairs, secrets down,
On the eve of Christmas.
Papa brings them from the town,
Wrapped in papers, stiff and brown,
On the eve of Christmas.
But the secret best of all,
On the eve of Christmas,
Steals right down the chimney tall,
Fills our stockings one and all,
On the eve of Christmas.
—Alice E. Allen
Friday
Help the children to learn “Christmas Secrets.”
FOURTH WEEK
Monday
Let the children play, as a game, “Christmas Secrets.”
Tuesday
Continue learning the poem. Have the children write: Secrets big and secrets small.
Wednesday
Have each child name something that he would like or that he had for Christmas. Write these in a list on the blackboard, the simplest of them to be read afterwards by the little folks.
Thursday
Talk about what the children did on Christmas Day.
Friday
Talk with the children about winter; the close of the old year, and the coming of the new year.