It’s Never Too Early (Or Late) To Practice Personal Growth

More than ever, we acknowledge how important it is to include the mental health part of health education. 

As human beings facing challenges and changes daily—since the moment we draw our very first breath—we are a constant work in progress. This fact is especially hard for students to grasp because they are used to being assigned tasks, completing them, and turning them in for a grade.

But that’s not always the case because we’re always learning, adapting, and changing. 

With our growth mindset activities, you’ll teach your students to accept that changes are a part of life and necessary to reach their fullest potential.

Because a developed growth mindset recognizes that a willingness to learn, time, and practice are equal parts of the equation. 

How to Use This Growth Mindset Word Search with Your Students

The best way to use this resource is as an introduction to what it means to have a growth mindset.

Students will go through the word search worksheet on their own, circling the following growth mindset words:

More Ways to Use This Activity to Create a Growth Mindset Classroom

This activity doesn’t have to stop when all the words are found! Try out these ideas for how to develop a growth mindset in the classroom:

Turn & Talk 

Invite students to pair up with someone in the seat nearest to them for a 5-minute Turn & Talk. Keep students engaged and on task by assigning a word from the list to each student or pair of students. Then ask them to discuss a time in their lives when practicing the action was difficult and what they learned from it. Use this Turn & Talk session to encourage students to make space for each other’s differences, listen to one another, and acknowledge that it’s ok if things are hard when trying something new as long as we are kind to ourselves and others. 

Charades

Bring these growth mindset words off the page and use them as charades prompts. Write each word on scrap paper, fold them, and put them into a container. To play, divide your class or small group into 2 teams. Teams will take turns sending up 1 student to choose a word from the bowl and get 30 seconds to act out the word soundlessly for their team. If no one guesses the word, it returns to the bowl, and no point is given. Once every student has had their turn to act out a word, the game is over, and the group with the highest points wins. 

Journaling

Encourage students to choose a word on the list that they sometimes struggle with and write in their journal about it. Ask them to think about what they would say to a friend with the same difficulty. Additionally, ask them to make a plan for themselves for how they might be able to better practice this action in the future.

Then, ask students to choose an action they think they are especially good at and write about a time when they demonstrated that behavior well. Why is this action especially beneficial to them in their lives? How will it help them in the future?  

Preparing This Resource for Your Students

Because this download includes the answer sheet, we recommend printing one copy of the entire file first. Then, make photocopies of the blank worksheets for students to complete independently. 

Before You Download

Please note this resource is available in Google Slides or as a PDF. An answer key is also included with this download.

This resource was created by Heather Chambers, a teacher & librarian in Texas and a Teach Starter Collaborator. 

We’ve got plenty more growth mindset teaching ideas where that came from! Check out these resources from our Personal, Social, and Community Health learning area:

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