The Ants & 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."
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.
--------------
Storytime Ideas:
We used this to talk about how smart the ants were--being prepared by work before play. But we also have used it to talk about waste from the grasshopper's perspective. Since he wasted his time and his food--just eating when he was hungry and passing by other food he could have saved for later. And the ants aren't super nice in this one, so we have an alternative ending where the ants share some food and the grasshopper doesn't want to take too much or waste any since the ants worked hard to get it and he didn't.
No comments:
Post a Comment