No Arms? No Problem in This Book!

Funded Oct 3, 2024

Thank you so much for donating to our classroom. We were able to get a class set of the novel "Insignificant Events in the Life of a Cactus." My 6th graders were excited to read about Aven, a teenager who was born without arms. They learned a lot of new vocabulary words, made predictions on what was going to happen, and used context clues to solve a mystery. They were excited to independently keep reading the series to see what happens in the sequel book.

For this book, we listed to the audiobook and followed along with our own copies at our desks. Before starting each day, we looked at some vocabulary words that we would come across in that day's reading. We also stopped a few times to dig a little deeper and make connections. One of the characters in this story, a boy that Aven becomes friends with, has Tourette's Syndrome. One day we spent learning about what TS looks like and how it may affect people's everyday living. We also talked about what a safe and inclusive classroom looks like and students planned out how to make a safe place in schools for students with various disabilities: what that place would look like, feel like, and sound like.

I concluded this novel study by collaborating with our TIS (technology-integrated support) teacher to come up with a digital project that tied in with the story. She ended up borrowing a copy of the book to read for herself before we completed the project! In the story, Aven has her own blog where she shares tips and thoughts. With the help of our TIS, my students created a fake blog using Canva that let them customize their page with an blog post about surviving middle school. The students loved this project, and loved adding their own touches to it.

Again, thank you so much for providing the funding so that my students were able to have a class set of this book. I look forward to sharing it with students for years to come.”

With gratitude,

Mrs. Hutzler