Storytime Shenanigans

This flannel board works well at a preschool or family storytime when you have older kids. It is one on Aesop’s fables teaching us that there is a time for work and a time for play. I have had this flannel for quite a few years. For the life of me I cannot remember to make the grasshopper and ant.

In a field one summer’s day, a grasshopper was hopping about, chirping and singing to its heart’s content. An ant walked by, grunting as it struggled to carry a plump kernel of corn.

“Where are you going with that heavy thing?” asked the grasshopper.

Without stopping, the ant replied, “To my ant hill. This is the third kernel I’ve delivered today.”

“Why not come and sing with me,” teased the grasshopper, “instead of working so hard?”

“I am helping to store food for the winter,” said the ant, “and think you should do the same.”

“Winter is far away and it is a glorious day to play,” sang the grasshopper.

But the ant went on its way and continued its hard work.

The weather soon turned cold. All the food lying in the field was covered with a thick white blanket of snow that even the grasshopper could not dig through. Soon the grasshopper found itself dying of hunger.

He staggered to the ant’s hill and saw it eating comfortably from the stores it had collected in the summer. He begged it for something to eat.

“What!” cried the ant 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 any food,” complained the grasshopper. “I was so busy playing music that before I knew it the summer was gone.”