Growth Mindset in Kindergarten

In kindergarten (and in life!) there are times when things feel challenging or hard. Today, we spent some time thinking and talking about how we can handle situations when things feel hard and we just want to give up. We talked about training our brains to have a "growth mindset:" saying things like, "I can try, even though it's hard!" and "it's okay to make mistakes! That is how we learn!" We started by reading a book called Giraffe Can't Dance by Giles Andreae and Guy Parker-Rees. In this story, Gerald the Giraffe is the worst dancer in the jungle and he is too embarrassed to go to the Jungle Dance. The other animals tease him and he finally gives up and decides he's never going to dance again. But a wise cricket helps Gerald realize that it's okay to not dance exactly like everyone else. He helps Gerald find the best music for him and Gerald, as you can imagine, ends up gaining confidence and showing the other animals his amazing dance moves.

Part way through reading the book, we stopped and had a class brainstorm about things that we can't do. We made a poster of this and then continued reading the book. We then went back and discussed how the things we listed were things we could keep practicing. We could say, "I can't do this....YET!" Eventually, we will learn how to do these things because we have a growth mindset!

We then each completed a paper describing something that we CAN do and something that we can't do YET!

Finally, I shared some posters that I will be hanging in the classroom to help us remember to practice a growth mindset instead of a fixed mindset. 

If you would like to read more about growth mindset in children and how you can encourage this at home, I recommend checking out this website: 8 ways to encourage a growth mindset in kids