Storybook Guide Based On Molly Bang's “When Sophie Thinks She ...

DREME website Go to resources for: Family Math Teachers Teacher Educators PreK-3 Alignment share

• copy link
• email
• facebook
• twitter
• pinterest

Activity Summary

Use this storybook guide with the book “When Sophie Thinks She Can’t…” Many public libraries have this book. This is a Mathical Award honor book.

Reading guideMath Talk

Reading guide

About the Story

This book begins with an insult: Sophie’s sister says Sophie is not smart because she can’t solve a geometric puzzle. Sophie is devastated: “I can’t do ANYTHING!” But Sophie’s teacher says, “You haven’t figured it out … YET” and encourages the class to keep working. Sophie and her classmates tackle a puzzle involving rectangles. At first they struggle. But they don’t give up, and each child thinks hard and uses their own method to solve the problem. Sophie’s successful method draws on a vegetable garden. She concludes, “I’m getting SMARTER!”

Words to Learn

MATH WORDS rectangle, square, sides, right angle, opposite sides, equal length, parallel, graph paper

About the Math and More

As Sophie and her classmates tackle the problem, your child can learn:

• How to develop a “growth mindset”—the attitude that you are not necessarily born with math ability but can get better and better at math with hard work and effort.
• The difference between rectangles and squares.
• How a square is a special type of rectangle.
• How to build rectangles out of a given number of squares.

Math Talk During Reading

• TALK ABOUT BEING BORN SMART What did the teacher mean by flexing the muscles? Did she agree that children are born smart in math? What did she mean by thinking hard? Why is ‘YET’ so important?
• TALK ABOUT RECTANGLES AND SQUARES Why is a square also a rectangle?” (Both have 4 straight sides and 4 right angles.) “Is a rectangle always a square?” (Not unless all four sides of the rectangle are the same length.) “Is Sophie’s rectangle really a rectangle? Why?” 

Try to come up with some of your own questions and comments, too!

Activity After Reading

Make your own rectangle puzzles: With your child, cut out a lot of little squares. Then take 4 and ask your child to make as many different rectangles as they can. Then do the same for 6 squares, 8 squares, etc. Write the numbers on the sides of the rectangles, just as Sophie’s teacher did.

Download this activity

English version

Download the Storybook Guide

For Educators

See how you can use this activity with a family

Activity Author

Herbert P. Ginsburg

Copyright Notice

The images on this page come from the book “When Sophie Thinks She Can’t…” by Molly Bang. Copyright © 2018 by Molly Bang.

More Math Activities

Visit Guía de lectura para el libro “Los animales no se dormían” activity

Conversen sobre las matemáticas mientras leen cuentos

Visit Conversen sobre las matemáticas mientras leen cuentos activity Visit Storybook Guide Based on Peggy Rathmann’s “10 Minutes till Bedtime” activity

Signup

Join our mailing list to stay updated.

Email Address*

Your Name*

Your Role (Please mark all that apply)
• Parent/Family member Parent/Family member
• Teacher/Early childhood provider Teacher/Early childhood provider
• Family educator Family educator
• Teacher educator Teacher educator
• Researcher Researcher
• Other Other

Boobytrap Label

This site uses cookies to personalize content, provide social media features and to analyze traffic.

Accept — Not now