What is the Growth Mindset?
If this is your first time here, welcome! This is a 12-week series to help parents and teachers discover hidden gems across the internet that will help them teach Growth Mindset to the children in their lives.
What is it? Fixed versus Growth Mindset
A fixed mindset means a child believes his or her intelligence is set and that there’s no changing it. With a growth mindset, a child believes persistence and hard work lead to success.
How can you help?
**Allow children to make mistakes
**Praise them on the process (work) instead of the end result (grade)
** Teach them that mistakes and failures will help them learn and grow
**Help your child change their inner dialogue:
Instead of “I can’t do this,” teach them to say, “ I can’t do this yet.”
- Instead of “I’m not smart,” try “ I will learn to do this!”
- Instead of “That didn’t work!” tell them to say “There’s always Plan B!”
- Instead of “I give up!” have them practice saying, “I’ll try it a different way!”
- Instead of “This is too hard!” have them say “This may take some time.”
**Be mindful of areas that can promote a Fixed Mindset (undesirable mindset)
**Pay attention to: what children are
- Watching (television, youtube, etc.)
- What children listen to (music)
- What they are reading (books)
Use www.commonsensemedia.org for reviews and recommendations for children’s media and technology
Stuck by Oliver Jeffers
Delightful chaos ensues when a young boy gets his kite stuck up a tree in this laugh-out-loud new picture book from award-winning, internationally best-selling author-illustrator Oliver Jeffers! Floyd gets his kite stuck up a tree. He throws up his shoe to shift it, but that gets stuck too. So he throws up his other shoe and that gets stuck, along with… a ladder, a pot of paint, the kitchen sink, an orang-utan and a whale, amongst other things! Will Floyd ever get his kite back?A hilarious book with a wonderful surprise ending.
How this book teaches Growth Mindset:
This is a story about a little boy who gets his kite stuck in a tree. All of his attempts to get that kite of the tree lead to him having other things stuck in the tree. At one point, he has so many things stuck in the tree that he forgets what he was trying to get down in the first place.
This story teaches growth mindset because this boy does not give up to get those things out of the tree. When he finally gets the kite of the tree at the end of the story, he is so pleasantly surprised! He plays with the kite, he goes to bed, but he wakes up in the middle of the night trying to remember why he is feeling so uneasy and it’s because his entire household and neighborhood is still stuck in the tree. So this has a funny ending, but it talks about never giving up and you can find small successes in determination.
A video to teach Growth Mindset:
Lesson on teaching Growth Mindset:
Growth Mindset Vocabulary Word Search – Fun and challenging Word Search Activity to help reinforce characteristics of Growth Mindset
