Growth mindset for kindergarten
Stop Hearing "I Can't!" – Proud to be Primary
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Whether you’re teaching K-2 or 3-5, you’ll find a wealth of information and resources for teaching growth mindset here. Try these growth mindset activities for elementary students today!
Growth mindset activities are vital to elementary students’ social-emotional learning. As a teacher, you want your students to develop into well-rounded humans. This means they have both the intellectual and emotional skills needed to succeed in life. In order to make this happen, you’ll need to teach your students to have a growth mindset. A growth mindset helps students achieve difficult skills, helping them persevere despite difficulties.
Growth Mindset Activities for Elementary Students
No matter how old your elementary students are, they need to learn how to develop a growth mindset. A growth mindset will help them achieve their educational goals for the year. It will also help them in life as they work through difficult tasks and ideas. Here are growth mindset activities for elementary students that can help them build a strong outlook.
Growth Mindset Activities for Grades K-2
These activities will teach students in grades kindergarten through 2nd all about how to achieve a growth mindset. From practicing positive mantras to reading children’s books as examples, these activities will help change your students’ thought processes.
- Growth Mindset Quote Posters – This activity set comes with coloring sheets your students will love, as well as mantras that will help them achieve a growth mindset. Grab a FREE sample HERE!
- Self-Regulation, Self-Control & Self-Esteem Social Emotional Learning Curriculum – Increasing your students’ self-esteem will help them in their quest for a growth mindset!
- Try a student-led classroom – Stacking cups can be a great way to explain how students can support and lead their learning.
This activity is perfect for encouraging a growth mindset! - Teach kids about the “power of yet” – To understand the “power of yet,” explain to students that sometimes things that are difficult take time to practice before succeeding. Remind them to have an attitude of “I can’t do this YET” but that one day soon, they WILL! Read the book Giraffes Can’t Dance, and perhaps use a graphic organizer to write down growth mindset take-aways from the book.
- Encourage Determination – The book, The Little Linebacker is a great book to teach your students about determination and to never give up!
- Highlight thoughts and feelings – Read The Girl Who Never Made Mistakes and take some time after reading for discussion. While talking about the book, ask students what thoughts and feelings the main character, Beatrice, expressed that showed her growth mindset versus her fixed mindset.
- Have kids write and draw what they like about themselves – A strong self-esteem helps your students have a growth mindset.
By writing/drawing positive affirmations about themselves, it reinforces a growth mindset. Encourage them to place their positive reminders in a place they see them every morning when they wake up.
Growth Mindset Activities for Grades 3-5
Older elementary students also need to learn how to have a growth mindset. As students get older, the skills they learn in school become more difficult. Because a growth mindset helps students persevere in the face of difficulties, these growth mindset activities are perfect for your classroom. These activities include ideas such as learning about the brain and bullet journaling.
Fixed vs. Growth Mindset – Sometimes, sorting thoughts and vocabulary is the easiest way to reinforce a concept. First, give your students the vocabulary needed to describe what a fixed mindset is vs. a growth mindset. Then, allow them the opportunity to sort those words either on their own paper. They can do it as a whole class on a visual chart, and/or in small group discussion.
- Create thought maps – You’ll be amazed by your students’ responses when you do this activity. In effect, it involves brainstorming what several growth mindset terms mean.
- Bullet journaling – Your students can use a bullet journal to cultivate a growth mindset! If you don’t know what a bullet journal is, it’s a free form of journaling. For example, it can include sketching, highlighting, coloring, and of course, bullet points. Kids usually enjoy the freedom to express themselves in journals. Also, they can be a great way to show their understanding.
- Talk about famous failures – Use inspiration from famous people who have failed to encourage your students to develop a growth mindset.
- Teach about the brain – The brain is a fascinating subject! You don’t have to know much about brain anatomy to teach growth mindset. For example, give a simple explanation about how the brain has different parts that work together to control and organize our thoughts.
Children will understand that our brain plays an important role in our thought processes and behaviors. - S.M.A.R.T. goal setting – Encourage kids to strive for what they want to learn and set specific goals to keep them focused and on track. Setting SMART goals means that they are S-Specific, M-Measurable, A-Achievable, R-Relevant, T-Time Bound.
Growth Mindset Activities and Resources for All Ages
Regardless of what grade you teach, there are some activities that students of all ages can do. These growth mindset activities are perfect for students of all ages. Students will show growth with these activities, such as role-playing, using new vocabulary, and reading literature to make connections.
- Teach the vocabulary – Talk about what the specific vocabulary is needed to describe what it feels like to have a growth mindset. A few examples of vocabulary words you might address are: perseverance, effort, mistakes, courage, risks, attitude, improve, challenge, and grit.
- Use a graphic organizer – You can use a graphic organizer or two to help your students discover more about a growth mindset. Some that might work are: thought/word maps, compare and contrast, Venn diagrams, fact vs. opinion charts, or tree charts.
- Inspire them with quotes – Try reading, verbally repeating, discussing, and writing inspirational quotes. It is a fun way for kids to learn about a growth mindset. Here are a few good examples.
- Say the word “yet” – Let your students hear you respond with the word “yet” when they say “I can’t ______.” Consequentially, this response can change their whole outlook.
- Using literature to guide discussions – There are so many great books that show great growth mindset examples! Pick any of these growth mindset books to give students a story example of having a growth mindset. For example, it will help them learn the concept in a thoughtful way.
Then you can use the books to spur discussion. - Role-playing scenarios – Give students task cards with scenarios on them to act out in small groups. This will lead to helpful discussions on topics about growth mindset.
These growth mindset activities will help you teach your students all about a growth mindset. From coloring pages to journal ideas, you can teach your students why a growth mindset is important. Try using these growth mindset activities for elementary students. You’ll get the chance to see your students’ perspective on life change as the year progresses.
Growth Mindset Classroom Resources
FREE Positive Self-Talk Growth Mindset Cards & Bookmarks
Give kids a bookmark and have them list three positive things they can tell themselves that will help them to never give up. Print and hand out the note cards to encourage kids when they need it, or give students their own set to read each day.
Click the image below to grab a copy today!
Growth Mindset Curriculum
The complete growth mindset unit for K-2 includes tons of helpful lessons and activities to help children develop a growth mindset and “I can” attitude.
Click here to see everything included.
Watch the video to see the growth mindset unit for K-2 in action!
The complete growth mindset unit for 3-5 includes tons of helpful lessons and activities to help older kids build a growth mindset, learn about the parts of the brain, and how to set SMART goals. Click here to see everything included.
Watch the video to see the growth mindset unit for 3-5 in action!
More Growth Mindset Activities
Growth Mindset Examples: Books and Videos for the Classroom
Teaching Growth Mindset in the Classroom
Social Skills Games
The Ultimate Guide to Teaching Social-Emotional Skills in the Classroom
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Growth Mindset for Kindergarten - Simply Kinder
Home » Growth Mindset for Kindergarten
Teach more about growth mindset for kindergarten with these teacher tips and ideas! A growth mindset is essential to maximize student learning! As kindergarten teachers, explicitly doing activities to support a growth mindset is a valuable tool in your classroom! Keep reading for ideas to use in your classroom!
Think back to your childhood. Do you remember thinking, “I can be anything I want in the whole world!” or “I’m not as smart as ________.
” Or maybe your inner dialogue was somewhere in-between? How did it all play out for you – do you feel that you’ve been successful? Have you had a lot of bumps along the way?
Keep reading to learn more about the Growth mindset in Kindergarten.
This Activity Works Well With These Resources:
According to Carol Dweck, Growth Mindset researcher, “the view you adopt for yourself profoundly affects the way you lead your life”. A Stanford psychologist and 2007 author of Mindset: The New Psychology of Success, Dweck has hit on a notion that has gotten the attention of millions of parents, teachers, and educational leaders: we can influence the way our lives turn out.
In this book, Dweck points out that there are two mindsets: Growth and Fixed. Every human has a bit of both inside him or her, and generally tends towards growth or fixed. Which mindset shows up specifically depends upon the situation. For example, doing something impossible, like learning to fly by jumping off a cliff, would trigger a fixed mindset in any sane person.
Regardless of how you frame this task or how much optimism with which you approach it, humans simply can’t fly.
There are many aspects of both mindsets.
Fixed Mindset
Mindset influences the actions taken by the learner, from studying for a test to applying for a job, and everything in-between. Someone with a fixed mindset might see feedback as criticism, whereas a person with a growth mindset would recognize feedback as an opportunity for improvement.
Those who have a fixed mindset see intelligence and talent as something you either have or don’t have – not something you can work towards. Individuals with this mindset also see intelligence or talent as the ticket to success. They do not consider hard work, effort, studying, etc., as part of the equation. In other words, you either ‘have it’, or you don’t.
Students with a fixed mindset tend to give up when faced with obstacles or adversity. They might view a task as ‘too hard, or something they’re ‘not good at.
Kind of like when someone identifies himself as ‘not a math person.
Growth Mindset in Kindergarten
In contrast, an individual with a growth mindset might say, ‘It’s not what you’ve got, but what you do with it that matters.’ Those who have more of a growth mindset recognize the value of effort and hard work in any situation.
When he comes across a difficult math problem or daunting science project, the student with a growth mindset will more likely think, ‘How can I achieve this? What are my steps?’ than ‘This is too hard. I’m going to fail.’
Growth Mindset Video:
The Class Dojo video series on Growth Mindset is great! A simple way to explain growth mindset to students. Watch episode 1 here:
Why does it matter in Kindergarten?
Whether a student holds a fixed mindset or growth mindset makes a huge difference in their learning experience – not just in school – in life, too.
Students that hold a fixed mindset give up when they can’t solve a problem and admit defeat. This can be detrimental to students’ future efforts and leads to limited student growth.
With a growth mindset, students continually work to improve their skills, leading to greater growth, competence and confidence. A student with a growth mindset is constantly improving, while the individual with a fixed mindset is not – because he doesn’t believe that he can.
The concept of the growth mindset is essential in learning and achievement. Parents and educators must teach this concept early and come back to it often. Our students need to know the power of YET – just because you’re not proficient now, doesn’t mean you won’t be an expert someday.
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Be sure to stay up to date with all things kindergarten on Instagram, Facebook, Pinterest, and through email. Simply Kinder: where teaching Kinder is definitely better together!
How to teach your child the growth mindset (and why you need it at all)
We are constantly told that the world is changing, and we must raise children as adaptive as possible. This will make it easier for everyone. But what can be done so that the child does not give up in the future, does not despair? Our blogger Konstantin Kostyukevich suggests thinking about what attitudes we give to children from a very early age.
I think every parent thought about how to raise a child so that he could always be in demand in life. There can be many answers here, and one of them (and in our opinion the most accurate one) is to teach the child to learn and relearn. And the first thing you need to do for this is develop a growth mindset in him and remove the fixed mindset.
What is the fixed mindset? People with this mindset believe in innate talents that determine whether a person can be successful at something.
Lack of talent is perceived as a sentence. Moreover, talent cannot be acquired either, it is by nature a given! Children with a fixed mindset:
- Often get excited about a new hobby but give it up quickly. They perceive the very first failures as a sentence - after all, if I am talented, then I should be good at it. Is always! And if suddenly it doesn’t work out, then I don’t have talent either. And then why do it?
- As a consequence of the previous paragraph, they are less persistent and tend to give up, with the wording “this is not mine!”.
- They subconsciously expect that the new business will not be very difficult. After all, if you are talented, then everything works out for you. Accordingly, if it’s hard, it means that there is no talent, and that means ... Yes, that’s right: “this is not mine and must be abandoned!”.
- “Genius”, “smart”, “talent”, “future mathematician” are not just words for them, but titles that should never be lost.
- They tend to avoid difficult tasks, because there is a high chance of screwing up. And you can’t make a mistake, as this will mean that I am no longer a “genius”.
- Justify or take offense at criticism, seeing it as a threat to themselves. “You are mediocrity” - and they don’t take into account at all that study consists of mistakes.
- Someone else's success is also seen as a threat, because if someone is more successful than me, then he is more talented, and if so, then I will never surpass him.
- First of all, look at the current result. This is the most important criterion for them.
What is a growth mindset? Children with this attitude believe that the most important thing is to make an effort, and they don’t even think about talents.
Such children:
- They are not afraid of difficult tasks, because this is an opportunity to become better.
- More stubborn, because they believe that "if you suffer for a long time, something will work out.
" - They react calmly to criticism, because they do not hold on to the status of "smart", the activity itself is important for them.
- They tend to consider someone else's success as an opportunity "since they succeeded, then it is possible in principle! I will try to repeat and then surpass.”
- The current result is not important to them, because their main criterion is “how much better have I become?”.
Children with a growth mindset will learn longer and harder while having fun. They are not focused on who they are now or how they look in the eyes of others, but on what they do.
Please do not think that all of the above is my fantasy and speculation. No, everything said above is scientifically substantiated and experimentally confirmed many times - I advise those who are interested to read Carol Dweck's book "Flexible Consciousness". There is a lot of water, but the experiments are most interesting.
What to do with all this information
If you are a teacher/parent:
1.
Forget about talents. Don't use phrases like "you're smart" or "you have talent." Instead, notice and reward efforts.
If all is well: “The task was difficult, but you tried and did it”, “I like the way you work”, “I see you made an effort to understand the topic”, “Today you solve better, than last week. Great!" etc.
If not so good: “Nice try! What else can be done here?”, “Maybe it’s worth trying a different approach here?”, “But there was an interesting discussion here!”, “What do you think needs to be changed to get a different result?” etc.
2. Throw out horoscopes, "humanists" and "techies", as well as all other divisions of people into types. You can believe it yourself (although I don’t advise), but please don’t say to the child: “You are an Aquarius, so the structuring of information is not yours, so don’t go into mathematics” or “You are a pure humanitarian with us”, because it is precisely such words that are put into the psychological cage of the fixed mindset.
Let the child try everything and not think: “Well, I have two in math, because I am a humanities student” (and not because I didn’t do my homework for the whole quarter and drew in class).
3. Don't scold me for mistakes! Remember that any training is accompanied by them. But it is worth paying attention and, perhaps, making a remark if the child does not try to learn from his mistakes (that is, he makes little effort).
4. Be interested not in grades, but in the knowledge that a student receives. Grades also contribute to the development of the fixed mindset because they divide students into groups of C's, B's, and A's. Plus, questions about grades make it clear to the student: “Knowledge is not important, grades are what you study for.”
5. Teach your child about the growth mindset and hang it over the table.
If you are a student:
Watch for signs of a fixed mindset and change it to a growth mindset. Each time saying something like “Well, I can’t do math!” or “here I am stupid .
..”, immediately remember the settings and say the same thing in a different way, correctly. The picture above will help you.
You are in the "Blogs" section. The opinion of the author may not coincide with the position of the editors.
Illustration: Shutterstock (Archv)
How the fixed mindset prevents children from learning
Ekaterina Ushakhina
We may or may not be aware of our beliefs, but they have a huge impact on what we want and how successful we are in getting it.
Carol Dweck, professor of psychology and professor at Stanford, in her bestselling book Mind Flexible, talks about two types of mindsets—the fixed mindset and the growth mindset. And explains how they affect our ability to learn.
Why do they like difficult tasks?
Carol Dweck tells this story in her book.
When I was a young aspiring scientist, an event occurred that changed my life. I wanted to understand how people deal with their failures.
And I began to study this by watching how younger students solve difficult problems. The first tasks were very simple, but then they became more and more difficult. And while the schoolchildren were puffing and sweating, I watched them.
I expected children to behave differently when trying to cope, but I saw something completely unexpected. Faced with more serious tasks, one ten-year-old boy pulled a chair closer to the table, rubbed his hands, licked his lips and declared: “I love difficult problems!”.
Source
It never occurred to me that someone could enjoy failure. I believed that abilities were given to a person once and for all. Either you are smart or you are not, and if you fail once, then you are not smart. Everything is simple. As long as you manage to achieve success and avoid failure (at any cost), you remain among the smart ones. Attempts, mistakes, efforts in this "game" do not count.
The little participants in the experiment thought differently: they were sure that intellectual skills could be honed with effort.
Carol decided to find out what is the essence of the attitude that can turn difficulties into a gift.
Two Types of Attitudes
Through twenty years of research, Carol has become convinced that the views a person holds can fundamentally change their lifestyle. If a person perceives intelligence and other qualities as something unchanging, given once and for all at birth, then he adheres to fixed.
If he is sure that intellectual abilities can and should be developed, perceives difficulties as a chance for self-improvement, then he has a growth mindset.
Where did the fixed mindset come from? Babies develop their skills not by the day, but by the hour. It will never occur to them that it is too hard. Toddlers are not disturbed by the thought that they can make a mistake or humiliate themselves. They go, fall and get up again. They just rush forward.
What can put an end to such an irresistible desire for learning? Set to given.
As soon as children learn to evaluate themselves, some of them become afraid of tests. They are afraid of appearing stupid.
Thousands of people, from preschool age and up, voluntarily give up the opportunity to learn.
In one study, Carol Dweck and her assistants gave four-year-olds the choice of re-assembling a simple picture puzzle or trying another, more complex puzzle. And even at this early age, kids with a clear fixed mindset preferred the safer option. Children who are born smart "make no mistakes," they said.
Source
"In what situation do you feel smart?"
Carol asked children and young people this question.
Those who had the fixed mindset answered:
"When I don't make any mistakes."
"When I finish a job faster and it's perfect."
"When something is easy for me but other people can't do it."
That is, when they are perfect from the very beginning.
But people with growth mindset said:
“When a task is really difficult, I struggle to solve it, and I finally manage to do something that I couldn’t before.”
"When I'm working on something for a long time and suddenly the solution starts to emerge in my mind."
People with the fixed mindset don't have the luxury of becoming. They should already be.
Get to your goals with the help of achievers: free download →
Attitude changes the meaning of failure
For people with a fixed mindset, failure transforms from an act (I failed) to a feature (I am a failure).
In one study, seventh graders were asked how they reacted to academic failure—say, a poor test grade in a new subject. Growth mindset students said they would study harder for the next test after that.
Those with the fixed mindset stated that they would prepare less for the next test.
If you don't have the right skills, why waste your time? And also, some of them reported, they would seriously think about how to write off! If you don't have the skills you need, they reasoned, you must find another way.
Instead of trying to better prepare and fix their "assessments", people with a fixed mindset may try to just "fix" their self-esteem. For example, start looking for those who showed worse results than themselves. This is their way of improving their opinion of themselves.
Source
Types of attitudes and ability to learn
There are many ways to learn. Many students do it this way: they read textbooks and notes. If the material is difficult, they reread it again. And they can try to learn everything by heart, absorb it like a vacuum cleaner. This is how students learn with a fixed mindset . They study for grades.
Students with growth mindset are in complete control of their learning and motivation. They do not memorize the material, but try to grasp the main topics and basic principles that run like a red thread through all the lectures.
They study to know, not just to get A's. When the material is difficult or uninteresting, they still do not lose motivation.
Drawing as an example of learning
It is believed that people are either given to draw by nature or not. Self-portraits of participants in a training session conducted by artist Betty Edwards refute this myth. The first portraits are drawn by the students at the beginning of the course, the second - at the end of their studies, five days later.
Look at the progress in drawing in just 5 days! Anyone can learn to draw. Illustration from the book "Flexible Mind"
The ability to draw is not a gift, but a list of skills: the ability to see, that is, to perceive lines, spaces, the relationships of elements, light and shadow, and all of this together. Drawing requires us to learn each of these individual skills and then combine them in one process. Everyone is capable of this.
This is very important, as many people with a fixed mindset believe that a person's early displays of skill (or lack of it) can safely judge a person's talent and future.
