Integrating Growth Mindset Throughout Our Instructional Day

Growth mindset is one of my favorite things that has come out in recent years, along with the science of reading.   I have a firm belief that if we use best teaching practices and support our students' development of grit and fortitude, they will become very resilient readers.

As teachers, we traditionally talk about it in the beginning of the school year or in January for New Year's Resolutions.  We create goals, we post them, and maybe at the end of the year, we'll evaluate our progression towards achieving them.  That's a good start . . . but our students need more.

In order to really develop a growth mindset, it needs to be ingrained in all our directions, instruction, conversations, and activities.  And it can be done without heaping more work our over-burdened selves.

Character Feelings Lists by Categories: Using Precise Language

Character feelings lessons begin in kindergarten and end in . . . well, we still talk about our feelings as adults, right?  Teachers are pros at experiencing a wide range of feelings, LOL. 😬

As students are developing their vocabulary banks, it's easy for them to just use words within their comfort zone:  happy, mad, sad, and scared.  Our jobs are to help them grow their vocabulary and use precise language.  What better way to scaffold the process than with some organized lists!

Character Traits List & Vocabulary Support

As we have entered the month of August, every teacher, whether she likes it or not, starts thinking about school.  Some of us have dreams (or nightmares).  Some of us go on a Pinterest spree.  We walk through Target and ask ourselves "What do I 'need' from the dollar section?"

You don't do this?  Okay, maybe it's just me.  Anyway, we are also thinking about what were some of our students' challenges last year, and how we will address them this year.  My third and fourth graders had difficulty with vocabulary and making inferences, which was evident in how they would describe their characters:

Nice

Mean

Sad

Oh my.

Learning about characters

This will be one of many posts dedicated to my FAVORITE children's author, Mo Willems.  I think he's a literary genius.  It's the best feeling in the world when you watch children silently read, and they can't help themselves, they need to act out the Pigeon's antics in their seat or whisper, "Aggle, plaggle!" like Trixie.   I have witnessed boys transform from disinterested to avid readers because of Mo Willems' books.  While I read a plethora of books to my students and expose them to as many wonderful authors as possible, I know that I can depend on his literature to hold a captive audience for my mini lesson.

Courtesy of http://mowillemsdoodles.blogspot.com/