In today's rapidly changing world, fostering a growth mindset in children is more essential than ever. A growth mindset—the belief that abilities and intelligence can be developed through dedication and hard work—equips kids with the resilience and adaptability they need to thrive in various aspects
Neuroplasticity is the science behind growth mindset. When kids understand neuroplasticity, their perception of their own abilities changes. It becomes much easier for them to understand growth mindset and embrace mistakes, obstacles, and challenges. In this article, we’ll provide helpful resources and activities to teach your children or students about their brains ability to grow and change.
Teaching growth mindset can be done with read-alouds! Rosie's Glasses is a great book for this. Get ideas for using this book to teach being positive.
Encourage your kids (and yourself) to persist in growth mindset with these inspiring growth mindset books with inspiring stories.
Inside: Discover a list of awesome growth mindset activities for kids that will encourage them to become more confident, try new things (even if they feel hard) and overcome challenges easier. "I can't do this!",
Developing a growth mindset for kids may require that adults shift the way they talk to students about abilities, intelligence, effort and strengths.
A goal setting template where students identify the smaller aspects that they will focus on to achieve one main goal.
These growth mindset coloring pages can provide an element of fun and creativity for your classroom activities. More importantly...
Guaranteed to inspire kids of all ages, these 10 TEDTalks make the perfect jumping off point for opening discussion about growth mindset at home or school.
Teach kids to have a growth mindset rather than a fixed mindset. Teachers can use these growth mindset books and videos during social-emotional learning lessons and activities with kids.
Do you incorporate growth mindset discussions in your classroom? We have made a concerted effort to keep students motivated by talking about how our mindset determines our ability to achieve success. And we have seen results! Our students are continuously putting forth effort and showing great determination. The sighs and choruses of "I can't" slowly but surely faded into 'a-has' and chants of "I'll keep trying!" One way to ensure that this becomes a central part of our classrooms is to make it a focus from Day 1. Enter our Growth Mindset Collaborative Craftivity! The first days of school are typically filled with many get-to-know-you activities and teambuilding exercises. This activity is all that and includes a growth mindset twist! Students work independently to think about how they can work on their growth mindset throughout the year, and then work together to build a dodecahedron with their classmates. Each student has a point that is only a portion of what will become a star. This provides the visual that when we have a positive mindset AND work together, we can reach the stars! So, what's the activity and how does it work? It is simple, ready to print, and includes little prep on the part of the teacher. Score! First, you will need to download the template from our store. The file includes a blank editable version of the template as well as our growth mindset version, so it is really a steal! Once you have it downloaded, print out a page for each student. The finished project looks great on either colored or white paper. Either way, this works best when printed on sturdy paper like cardstock. This activity is particularly great because it is really open to interpretation. The spaces provided allow the teacher and/or student to choose how they would like it filled in. For example, the "This is me" section can be a spot for the student to write their name or draw a self-portrait. Similarly, the "Growth Mindset Vision" panel can be a spot for the student to draw a picture of how they will be using a growth mindset, something they hope to accomplish through using a growth mindset, or what a growth mindset looks like to them. The possibilities are truly endless. Let the students run wild as they think about how their own mindset will set them up for future successes. Once the sheet is filled out, students will cut on the solid lines. It is VERY IMPORTANT to remind students not to cut on the dotted lines. Those will be for folding in the next step! Now we are ready for those dotted lines. Students need to fold on each of the dotted lines. This will separate the panels from the tabs that will be used for gluing. Start by folding over one panel at a time. Fold the tabs down and away from the triangle panels. To turn each sheet of panels into a point, glue the long tab behind the triangle panel on the opposite end (the 'This is me' panel). Here you can see the 'This is me' panel and 'Reach for the stars' panel are now side by side. Now that each of the students has created a star point, the collaborative portion of the project is ready to begin. Students now begin to connect the star points to one another. A total of 12 points will create one star. Begin by placing two star points next to each other. Glue one tab from point A to one tab from point B. Point A on the left is now glued to Point B on the right. Students will continue gluing in this fashion until there are 12 points. The 12th point is the most difficult to attach, as it will have five points to connect to. This is when a little helping hand from the teacher or another adult might come in handy. When all 12 points are glued together, you will have a star full of positive thoughts ready to be hung in the classroom! We hope your students enjoy this fun activity for the beginning of the school year and that they continue to see its value to their education. Let us know in the comments how else you plan to use the star template in your classroom!
A great list of 25+ picture books exploring growth mindset. Perfect for elementary/primary age students. Exploring themes of perseverance, facing failure...
Use these growth mindset activities for kids and adults to view failure as an opportunity and skyrocket your ability to learn.
These free growth mindset coloring activities are creative ways to help your kids learn & practice these positive skills.
Your kid needs to watch these growth mindset TED Talks ASAP!! #TEDTalks #GrowthMindset #TEDTalksForKids #InspirationForKids #PositiveMindset
Having a growth mindset can be challenging when students start school. Kids will make mistakes, fail, and come face to face with obstacles during kindergarten, 1st grade, and 2nd grade. We can teach them to have a growth mindset, persevere, and change their mindset. The Magical Yet is a top-notch growth mindset book for kids to help illustrate the power of "yet" and the importance of goal setting. You'll also enjoy FREE smart goal journal templates for your students in the classroom!
Help them believe they can achieve.
Guaranteed to inspire kids of all ages, these 10 TEDTalks make the perfect jumping off point for opening discussion about growth mindset at home or school.
Our twins were in preschool when I first heard them say things like, “I’m just not good at that.” Or “I can’t do that.” I remember feeling so disheartened. We’d made such an effort to encourage and emphasize growth and strengths in our home. I knew, of course, that adults have a strong negativit
This free printable topics cube is a fun way to spark growth mindset for kids conversations. Powerful way to build these skills!
This zentangle growth mindset project is one of my favorite activities for the beginning of the school year!
Tons of helpful growth mindset activities for elementary students in one place. Easy to implement ideas to motivate kids to build a strong growth mindset!
As more and more research comes out about the power of Growth Mindset and more and more people are leaning towards this line of thinking (heck, even my District is getting on board...they talked about it at a training I went to over the summer!), I figured that this would be as good a time as any to teach my students about their own brains and mindset. So I began my first week of school with a few lessons that really set a great tone for my students. To begin, I wanted something tangible and hands-on for my students to experience. So I searched online and found this lesson here. In a nutshell, I folded some paper in a crazy figure (that didn't actually look all crazy...until I tried to make it...go to the blog for exact instructions) and told the students they needed to recreate it. I had them get into groups of 7-8 students, put the figure in the middle and gave them each the exact same piece of paper I used. There were only two rules: They could not touch the folded paper and they could not have a second piece of paper. Most of the students got right to it. As they were working, I walked around with a clipboard and wrote down everything that I was hearing in the groups. At the beginning, I heard things like: This is easy. Look, we just fold it this way and then that. Let me get my scissors and we can all just cut it. Hmmm....I wonder how she did that. Can you just show me what you are doing? Then, as time went on and recreating the folded paper wasn't as easy as they thought, the narrative started to change. I started to hear: Wait, what? This isn't going to work. I can't get this. What did you do? Seriously, she had to use tape. How did she get that part? Let's only do one paper at a time in case we make a mistake. This was also the time when I started to see some kids just sit back and watch. They stopped trying altogether and just let everyone else experiment. I also noticed some kids taking charge completely and not letting others have opinions. Then, towards the end, I heard: This is impossible. I give up. I just can't do this. What on earth did she do? She used magic. After about 10 minutes of working, I called them all together again (no one was able to fold it correctly), I showed the students what they said. It was a bit eye-opening for them to see that some just quit so early on or that they declared the task impossible. Clearly it wasn't, as I had just folded the paper. They just wanted me to tell them the answer. This then lead into a nice discussion about the basic principles of growth mindset. That you have to keep going and trying. That your brain was meant to learn. So I passed out a quiz that I got from Angela Watson of the Cornerstone for Teachers. (she has a whole Growth Mindset pack that is really useful) They took the quiz, which asks questions about whether students think they can learn and grow or if they were just born that way. Then, we watched a video that Angela links from the Khan Academy about the fact that our brains were born to learn. We wrote down many ideas from the video, the biggest being that failure = growing. That REALLY stuck with them. I then asked the students to write down all of the words they could think of that pertained to their idea of what it means that "you were born to learn." The more important words, in their opinion, were to be larger than the less important words. Effectively, they were making a free form word cloud. I then took their picture as if they were screwing in a lightbulb, glued it onto the word cloud they created, and using tissue paper, they formed a "lightbulb" above their hand. All in all, this was a fabulous way to introduce the idea of growth mindset to my students. This entire process took two days to complete, but it was well worth it. The students continue to make connections to that first video from Khan Academy and refer to the idea of "failure = growing" still. I am also finding that there is just a much more positive tone in class because of it. I can't wait to continue on with future lessons. Have you delved into growth mindset? What are your experiences?
Graduating 5th grade certainly is different from when I was little. Now, it means you are officially a middle schooler. One fifth grade class took the
I love to start the year building classroom community with Peter H. Reynold’s books like The Dot and Ish. They are great read aloud books to begin a growth mindset activity. Both books are great for teaching kids that it is okay to take risks and make mistakes. Those books also go very well […]
Have growth mindset fun with your kids using these 1 free cootie catchers! Includes print-and-go color and black-and-white versions.
Use these growth mindset activities for kids and adults to view failure as an opportunity and skyrocket your ability to learn.
Graduating 5th grade certainly is different from when I was little. Now, it means you are officially a middle schooler.…
Train your brain! Developing a growth mindset is one of the first steps in building resilient learners who see adversity as opportunities for learning. Teach kids with these social-emotional lessons about having an elastic brain.
These are 5 common ways parents accidently raise kids with a victim mentality or "poor me" attitude instead of a growth mindset.
These are some of my favorite growth mindset books for kids to help start a conversation about taking risks, dealing with failure, and having persistence through it all.
Learn how to change a child's inflexible thinking with this collection of tips, books, and activities to develop a growth mindset for kids!
