DECEMBER 103 



Easy Poems : 



The Night Before Christmas, Whittier's Child Life. 



Waken, Little Children, 1 



Christmas Hymn, , j^iganor Smith's Songs for Little 



Green Holly Boughs, Children. 



Bells are Ringing, 



Stars. 



First and Second Years. 



Facts : 



The stars which shine with a steady light are planets, 

 like our own earth ; those that twinkle, are suns. The 

 brightest of the planets are Venus, sometimes visible in 

 full daylight, and Jupiter, the largest of all. Venus is 

 never seen except in the east or west ; Jupiter is found in 

 the south. Saturn is paler, and Mars may be known by 

 its reddish color. The other planets are less easily found. 



The twinkling of the fixed stars is not intrinsic, but 

 due to atmospheric conditions. It is more marked in 

 tropical regions, where, too, the stars are more brilliantly 

 colored. In our own zone it is more noticeable just above 

 the horizon than in the zenith. 



The constellations most easily found in our latitude 

 are the Great Bear, or Dipper, Cassiopeia, and the Dragon. 

 When in addition to these Auriga and Lyra are known, 

 all of the other constellations may be easily located. 



The first brilliant star in a line with the 4;wo pointers 

 of the Dipper is the North Star. This is again the outer- 

 most star of the handle of the Little Dipper. Directly 

 opposite the Dipper, using the North Star as a centre, 

 will be found the straggling W which makes the con- 

 stellation of Cassiopeia. Equidistant from the North 

 Star, and also from Cassiopeia and the Dipper, will be 



