Growth mindset activities are activities that encourage learning through the process of doing. During growth mindset activities participants will face challenges and have to overcome them with trial and error, peer feedback, and creativity.
Let The Fun Begin
A few years back I did a Growth Mindset art activity with my kids. At the time I didn’t even know it was a growth mindset activity but I knew my son was struggling with making mistakes. Being an artist, I know that some of the best parts of my paintings come out of what I initially think are mistakes. I wanted him to understand that mistakes are ok. That mistakes actually make things better. So, here’s what we did….
First I asked him what we wanted to draw and he chose a dragon. So we found a reference picture of a dragon and he went to work drawing from his reference. Even the drawing process was frustrating for him because he wanted it to be “perfect”. “Perfect” is a word I try to never use because, well, it’s impossible, but for some reason 10 year old kids think it’s a must. He got through the drawing with satisfaction and then began painting it. I then told him he has to close his eyes and splatter paint all over his painting. Yep, I really did. He looked at me like I had grown horns and really could not bring himself to do it. After quite a bit of encouragement and reassurance he picked up that paint brush and splattered away.
Magic From The Mess
Once he opened his eyes and saw the mess, the panic set in. “Well great, it’s ruined,” he said. “I can’t believe you made me do that,” he said as tears welled up in his eyes. And yes, my mommy heart started to hurt a little and that voice of doubt started to get louder in my head. “Ok, bud, remember we’re just doing an experiment, so let’s see what we can make out of this mess,” I replied. As we both took breaths and calmed down, I asked him what shapes he saw in the mess, a similar activity to looking at the clouds and finding shapes. Slowly he began to see things and was able to turn this big blob on the dragon’s back into a really cool bird along for the ride.
Lessons Learned
It’s so hard to trust the process sometimes. As a coach, I preach it to my players all the time. As a parent, I preach it to my kids. But maybe my hardest audience is myself. And yet over and over again the process proves itself to be true. Mistakes are going to happen, we have to help our kids learn that they can’t control that but they can control their reactions to them. In my opinion, there’s a lot of talk about handling mistakes, what we need are more Growth Mindset activities to learn through doing.
Here in another great Growth Mindset activity that I found on YouTube, enjoy!!!
