Our Growth Mindset Class-Created Anchor Chart

It's no secret I'm a huge fan of Growth Mindset-thinking, and I try to incorporate it throughout our day whenever I can.

If you haven't seen my previous posts about Growth Mindset and goal setting, be sure to check them out below, including a great resource round-up to help get you started.

To begin our year, I love to reference this fantastic anchor chart by Stephanie Skelton:

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I chose to make this activity a bit more interactive since it was the beginning of the year and I wanted to keep my students up and moving as much as possible. I also had these phrases (along with a few others I added) typed up and ready to go, mostly because the kids weren't yet familiar with the new language associated with Growth Mindset.

Our final result looked like this and I cannot be happier, especially since it's the first thing you see on our wall as you enter our classroom:

Creating Your Own Anchor Chart as a Class:

To help us introduce these ideas, we read these two fantastic picture books:

After a class discussion about these characters, we were ready to dive into the two mindsets.

I set this activity up by passing out each of these slips of paper and having students walk to the end of the classroom they thought their phrase belonged in: Fixed or Growth.

After they were on either end of the classroom, I had someone from the "Fixed" side read their slip and someone on the "Growth" side would share their slip if they thought it was a better way to frame that problem. While there are no hard and fast pairings, some do fit better with others, and we enjoyed referring to the books (and even our own experiences) for evidence and examples.

I then glued these down onto large sheets of butcher paper (each color is 24" across, so 4 ft. wide altogether!), and hung it front and center in our classroom, so it's the first thing you see as you come in the door.

Tip: You could also copy these responses on green and red paper and use white butcher or chart paper to display them.

If you're interested in these slips, they are available as a freebie on Google Docs HERE. I also recommend checking out the links below and I hope you enjoy this activity with your students!