Out of Our Minds!

Funded Jul 25, 2018

Thank your for supporting my project, "Out of Our Minds!" With your help, I was able to receive 25 copies of the book "Out of My Mind" by Sharon Draper to read with my 5th grade students this year. We started reading this book at the beginning of the school year, and finished it around a month ago. My students LOVED this book. We would read the book every day for 30 minutes, and complete activities that went along with each chapter. One particular activity that was very popular among my students (and my personal favorite!) was a "No Talking Day." In this book, the main character, Melody, has Cerebral Palsy. She is confined to a wheelchair, and cannot talk. Her only method of communication was through a talking board. I gave each of my students their own talking board, and they had to communicate using only that for the day. This talking board had letters of the alphabet, and basic words like bathroom, yes, no, mom, dad, teacher, etc. It was a challenge for my students to use, but at the end of the day they said they could understand how Melody feels more, and why she is so frustrated! It was hard for them not to talk, but they appreciated the way it allowed them to connect with Melody.

We also completed activities that helped us learn different reading strategies, like making inferences, sequencing, finding the main idea of the story, and characterization. It was so fun to watch the students learn these different reading strategies as they read, and see how they improved throughout the book.

However, I feel that even though we learned all kinds of strategies, and things that help us be better readers, the greatest lesson my students learned through this book was how to be good people. In the story, Melody meets a lot of people that look down on her because of her disability, but she also meets a lot of really amazing people that see her for who she really is. I feel like my students learned to not judge a book by it's cover, or to not judge people based on the way they look, or maybe even talk! This is an important life lesson that we all need a reminder of, and I'm grateful that my students had the opportunity to learn this lesson at a young age.

Again, thank you for donating to my project. You have made a huge impact in my classroom. We have all walked away better readers, and better people.”

With gratitude,

Mrs. Flint