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The Most Magnificent Thing
by Ashley Spires
The Napping House
Great creations often result from many attempts and lessons learned along the way. This story follows a young girl and her trials as she makes the most magnificent thing.
Resources for The Most Magnificent Thing:
Full Book Review (English)
Full Book Review (Spanish)
Brief Book Review (English)
Brief Book Review (Spanish)
What happens when making the most magnificent thing ends up being more difficult than you thought?
Math Connections:
engineering perseverance
construction growth mindset
Activities to Do Together:
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Discuss how your child learned something recently like riding a bike or tying their shoes. At first they couldn’t do it, but with effort and practice, now they can. Math can be like that too!
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Bring in some found or recyclable materials and build a “Most Magnificent Thing” with your child. Remind them that the girl in the book made some mistakes along the way, but she learned from her mistakes and made it better. Mistakes are how we learn!
Extension Questions:
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What did the girl do that made you think she will succeed in building the most magnificent thing?
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When things went wrong, what did the girl do?
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Can you think of a time that something you were doing didn’t work out the way you wanted it to? What did you do?
Vocabulary for Building Math Concepts:
big, heavier, long, measures, pair, ratio, round, shapes, sort, small, square