A Fine, Fine School by Sharon Creech

Genre: Picture Book, Realistic Fiction
Theme: School, Family
Grade Level: K-2
Curricular Connections: English (vocabulary), School

Tillie is your average elementary school student. She goes to school Monday through Friday and learns school type stuff: colors and numbers and writing and reading. On weekends she climbs trees, takes Beans on walks and throws him sticks, and pushes her brother on the swings.

Mr. Keene is your average elementary school principal. He is proud of the teachers and students at his fine, fine school. So proud, in fact, that he decides to have school on Saturdays! Sill proud, he then adds Sundays. Then holidays. Then summers too. (Watch the pictures. Not only are the looks of horror on the students' faces wonderful, but the teachers' reactions are priceless.)

Tillie works up the courage to tell Mr. Keene that some activities are not getting learned. Beans has not learned how to sit or jump over the creek. Her brother hasn't learned to swing or skip. And Tillie herself hasn't learned how to climb a very high tree and sit in that tree for a full hour. So Mr. Keene reevaluates his decision, reverses it, and is revered throughout town.

Classroom Suggestions:

1. Read it aloud on the first day of school, announcing that since your school is so wonderful ("Wouldn't you agree, class?") some small changes would be made. Stop before Tillie goes to Mr. Keene and discuss what the problems might be similar to the problems Tillie sees.

2. Do the same activity, but later in the school year, on a Friday or the day before Spring Break.

3. Focus on emotions. Students can share emotions the kids in the story feel and imagine how they would feel. Students should be encouraged to go beyond mad/sad/glad to use stronger vocabulary.