Does your child get frustrated often? Many children, specifically children with ADHD get frustrated often and have a difficult time sticking with an activity due to low frustration tolerance. I came across this book titled, The Most Magnificent Thing by Ashley Spires, which can be an excellent tool in helping a child who has trouble sticking with challenging activities.
The Most Magnificent Thing about a girl who loves creating inventions with her best friend in the whole wide world. All this girl wants to do is create a magnificent thing! She has the idea in her mind of exactly what she wants to create. but each time she tries, she fails! She tries again and again and finally she gets so frustrated that she explodes! What does she do? She decides to take a walk to calm herself down. During her walk, she realizes what she did wrong and is able to get back to task and fix her invention to be magnificent! In the meantime, her neighbors crowd around her “failure projects” and find creative ways to use these tools.
I love this book because it normalizes the frustration a child may feel when trying and trying without success. It offers a practical solution that both children and adults have access to (such as taking a walk) and then gives clarity to the situation. Also, by making mistakes, the girl in the story figures out how to fix her problem.
When reading this book, there are a lot of speech and language goals that can be targeted:
1. Define and discuss the word magnificent.
2. Target actions. There are many action words such as “make”, “unmake”, “examine”, “stand”, “saw”, “glue”, “adjust” and many more.
3. Discuss the girls feelings throughout the book. How did she feel in the beginning of the book? How did she feel when she couldn’t get her invention right?
4. Work on problem solving. Ask your child, “What would you do if you got frustrated?”
5. Discuss consequences. Ask your child, “What would happen if the girl quit and never came back to her project?”
6. Sequencing. Ask your child to recall the events in the story in the correct order.
7. Prediction. As you are reading the story, ask your child “What do you think she will do next?”
8. Relate the book to your child’s experiences. Discuss when your child got frustrated and what he or she did. Discuss your own experiences with being frustrated.
Are you a teacher? Looking for some good ideas for the classroom with this book in the Fall? check out this excellent post by Scholastic here.
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