Half of teaching kindergarten children about growth mindset is teaching it in a child centred way. The other half is educating parents so they can support their students growth.
In our class, we actually don't use the term growth mindset very often but we are learning about it in our own, age appropriate way.
We began to talk to our students about mistakes. We've reiterated that mistakes help us learn and we all make mistakes. So we are all learning! One of our most popular sayings in our classroom is, "Mistakes makes our brains grow!" We use many different phrases that mean the same thing message.
Most recently, we have been using primary friendly posters to guide our thinking:
We use the following quotes to inspire students
Mistakes are beautiful.
They are needed in order to learn. Everyone learns when they make mistakes
I cannot do this... yet!
We've talked about how our mindset influences our thoughts. We can learn. We might not understand something now, but we will understand it eventually!
Believe in yourself!
Knowing that we can learn gives us a positive attitude. We can learn lots of things!
Simple, and child friendly.
I was happily surprised when a small group of 6 girls gave our SERT (Special Education Resource Teacher) a tour of the classroom today. She sat down to play with the children and they decided to show of some of their reading skills around the room. They began by reading the "write the room" words they had posted around the room (this is a very popular activity in our classroom - see the link for where I get these activities from). Then they walked up to our new growth mindset posters. They read it to our SERT and then had a nice conversation with her letting her know what that meant.
"Mistakes are beautiful!"
"Everybody learns and everyone makes mistakes. Even our teachers!"
"My mom makes mistakes. She is learning too!"
"I am learning when I don't understand something!"
"I am learning when I make mistakes!"
These are just a small sampling of their understanding, but extremely meaningful nonetheless. A very noteworthy moment in my teaching career, for sure!
Slowly but surely, they are coming up to me and my teaching partner throughout the day and acknowledging their struggles. It is getting more frequent that we hear, "This is hard! That means I am learning!"
Here are some other posters we have recently added and discussed with our students:
If you are interested in the posters that we use in our class click on the link below! There are many included in the bundle and we use them as a reference regularly throughout our day.
How do you share with your students the concepts of growth mindset? I would love to hear from you!
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