Growth Mindset Activities and Games for Kids

In our last article, we’ve talked about a growth mindset in general. It was an in-depth guide that included everything you need to know about a growth mindset as a teacher or as a parent. So, if you still haven’t read it and want to know more about this topic, make sure to check out “Growth Mindset for Kids: How to Help Kids Develop It.” Today, however, we’ll continue the conversation and dive right into the practical stuff – sharing growth mindset activities and games for kids. 

The theory is a necessary precondition, but to truly believe they can achieve their goals through hard work, kids need practical activities to consolidate the newly acquired knowledge, see the connections for themselves, and draw their own conclusions. And the best part is that this works for everyone, not just kids. This is why seminars or workshops on personal and professional success engage participants in many activities rather than just present the knowledge behind the concepts. 

But, don’t worry! Our list of growth mindset activities is specifically designed for kids from preschool to the upper middle school level. The activities are easy to follow, affordable to organize, and incredibly fun! So, let’s see what they are. 

Growth Mindset Activities for Kids

On this list, you’ll find quick and no-fuss activities as well as more time-committing exercises that require some patience and a lot of discipline. While quick activities are a great way to support the lecture, longer experiences are more powerful in changing a belief or creating a habit of a growth mindset. 

Get to Know the Brain Visually 

To be able to truly grasp the concept behind the growth mindset, kids need to know how the brain works. After all, just from observing other kids’ achievements, it’s easy to form a misguided conclusion that everyone is good at something and bad at something else. While that’s not an entirely false conclusion, it’s misguided in a way that it implies a fixed and “given” relationship. “Some kids just can’t do maths!” – WRONG!

The school curriculum has been researched, developed, and refined so that all kids with normal development can grasp the basics and pass. And they need to know this by understanding just how capable their brain is. 

Draw the brain or order an anatomical model of the brain from Amazon and discuss what makes the brain unique. For example, neurons are always in a rush to form new connections or get rid of all connections, depending on how often we use them. This is why it’s almost impossible to forget something that we use daily, but hard to remember another thing that we have seen only once. 

There are so many other cool facts about the brain and fun experiments or illusions you can use. They can amaze children and convince them of the immense power they have within them. 

Here are two resources for inspiration: 

• Your Fantastic Elastic Brain: A Growth Mindset Book for Kids to Stretch and Shape Their Brains by JoAnn Deak Ph.D. – a book filled with cool facts, stories, and unique and creative illustrations of the brain. 
• National Geographic Kids Brain Games: The Mind-Blowing Science of Your Amazing Brain by Jennifer Swanson and Hank Green. – a book about the brain with fun facts and crazy challenges.

Accomplishment Jar 

One easy and rewarding way to celebrate achievements and hard work are by keeping an accomplishment jar. The jar should be large enough for kids to be able to freely put their hands inside and pull their contents out. If you’re in a classroom, you can ask each student to bring a jar, or alternatively, to use boxes. There’s nothing special about the container in which the child will keep its achievements, but jars are more durable, which is why we recommend them for this activity. 

So, once you find the right jar, let your child or students decorate it with their personal notes or inspirational quotes. Then, explain the rules. The accomplishment jar should be kept with them for a month (alternatively, a week or a year) during which time they should write on little slips of paper what they have achieved, and place them in the jar. Encourage kids to write every day – the achievement can be small, like “finally went hiking with my dog” or big such as “I got first place in the regional math competition!” Everything counts!

Another important rule is how they write these achievements. Tell kids that they need to write about the process, about the effort and hard work. A good example of this would be writing “I studied the whole week for more than 2 hours each day and I attended an online course for my math exam. I got a straight-A!” instead of just “I got a straight-A!” 

This is because people remember the results (especially the negative ones), but they don’t remember the hard work that went into achieving the result.

After a month, children can open the jar and remind themselves of everything they’ve achieved. They can even share this with their classmates so they can motivate each other. Just remember, for this to work, they need to be sincere in their answers.

Turn the Negative Into a Positive 

Language is incredibly important and makes all the difference in the world! Children need to learn how to express themselves in a positive way, which is fundamental for a growth mindset. At first, it might be perceived as weird or artificial, but with time it will become a part of who they are, and more importantly, it will shape their beliefs!

With this little exercise, kids will learn how their inside voice (not just the things we say out loud) can shape the way they think about the world. So, how to organize it?

Ask kids to write down a list of sentences that express their insecurities, some mistakes they’ve made, or the relationship between the things they don’t like and themselves. A good example might be “I’m not smart enough for math!”, or “I’m not good at drawing!”, “I’ll never be a good athlete!”, etc. These are all beliefs that all children have for one thing or another. It’s important to identify these beliefs and transform them into something more accurate. 

How would the positive statements sound? 

Here are a few positive spins on the classic example of “I’m just not smart enough for math!”

• I haven’t been working as hard as I have been on other subjects. 
• I’m smart, I just haven’t yet learned how to solve these specific math problems.”
• “Math is more challenging and I need to put more effort to understand it.”
• “Kids who think math is easy enjoy solving math problems and they do that a lot!”
• “I’m smart enough to be great in math, but I’m more interested in chemistry.”

Create SMART Goals

SMART is a mnemonic acronym for sustainable, measurable, attainable, relatable, and time-constrained goals. They’re a well-established and widely popular tool for making real progress and realizing one’s dreams. Unfortunately, we learn about this tool when we visit some time-management or professional development course, even though they should be introduced to kids from a very young age. The benefit of using SMART goals for kids is that they’ll learn exactly how much effort, patience, and discipline they need to invest to be able to get the results they desire – the basis of a growth mindset. 

To make SMART goals, ask kids to keep a journal or a weekly planner, where they’ll write down one, two, or more goals they want to achieve that week. Of course, bigger goals can be set for a longer period of time. It’s best if every page of the journal or planner follows the same structure – the name of the goal, description, why you want to achieve it, and the SMART requirements.

With this activity, kids will not only get a valuable habit for success, but they’ll also learn more about themselves – what things do they enjoy and have meaning to them. 

Self-Awareness Checklist

While we’re on the topic of learning about oneself, here’s another activity to promote psychological resilience which is key to cognitive, emotional, and social growth. A person with a growth mindset knows their strengths and weaknesses, their interests, passions, and most importantly, how to use them to their advantage.  

We can also say that self-awareness is the stepping stone to self-improvement. So, after you explain to kids about growth, abilities, intelligence, and learning, ask them to make a list where they’ll reflect on their abilities and preferences. Then, discuss how the child can use the newly gained insights and make progress. Write everything down and keep the list. When the child is indecisive or feels demotivated, remind them of who they are. 

The list should contain answers to the questions: 

• What are your strengths? 
• What are your weaknesses? 
• When is learning most enjoyable?
• What do you want to do most?
• What causes stress to you? 
• What makes you feel confused and uncomfortable? 
• How do you avoid these feelings? 
• What makes you feel relaxed and comfortable?
• Try out our Self-Awareness worksheet pack 

Organize a Kindness Week

While the name reveals a lot, there are many different kinds of kindness, including being kind to oneself, and we believe kids should have all the different experiences. We chose a week of kindness because it’s the most suitable time interval in which you can easily incorporate all the activities we’re going to describe below. However, feel free to separate them and do them one by one. It’s all up to you. 

How do we imagine kindness week? Kindness week is a set of challenges where kids engage in different activities ranging from charity work, helping a family member, and giving out compliments, to helping a classmate with homework. Here’s a seven-day challenge with different activities for kindness week:

• Day 1: Do charity work – contact a local charity and ask how you can help. Then, you and your child can contribute, or if a teacher, you can think of ways to contribute as a class. 
• Day 2: Give out compliments – tell the child to spend the whole day praising the people around them. How and for what they’re going to compliment them, it’s totally up to them. 
• Day 3: Help a family member – grown-ups have a lot of responsibilities around the house, and on this day, kids can learn about these things by voluntarily helping them with different activities. 
• Day 4: Help a classmate with homework – ask kids to write down on a piece of paper what they would like to learn more about and what they can help others with. Then, assign kids a buddy who needs help with something they’re good at. 
• Day 5: Donate old clothes and books – the child can choose clothes they’ve outgrown and/or school books from previous years and give them to someone in need. 
• Day 6: Show kindness to oneself – simply tell kids that this day is when we show kindness to ourselves and they can do whatever they most enjoy, love, or want to do for a long time. There’s just one rule: negative thoughts about oneself are forbidden!
• Day 7: Spend the whole day with the people we love – the final day is showing kindness and love to the people around us by visiting one’s grandparents, calling one’s friends over to play or hang out, going on a picnic with the whole family and the dog, and so much more! 

It would be a good idea for kids to keep track of their feelings and sense of accomplishment during this week, or to ask them to write an essay or a report on their subjective experience and thoughts during kindness week. Ask them to reflect by answering the questions: 

• What was different? 
• What has changed? 
• How did the people around you behave? Did they change their behavior? 
• How did you feel? 
• Would you keep something from this week?

Create a Thought Map

This is an amazing growth mindset activity that provokes kids to think and at the same time allows them to see other points of view, which might give additional cognitive resources when dealing with everyday problems. 

To organize this activity, simply write the words creativity, mistakes, dedication, success, risk, courage, effort, and persistence on a big white paper and pin them to the blackboard. Then, give children 5-10 minutes to think about these words and write down something that explains the meaning of each of these words. Once they’re done, ask kids to come forward and add their answers around the words on the blackboard. Read out loud all the definitions and different associations and make connections between the ones with the same sentiment (positive, negative, neutral). 

Finally, ask kids what they learned about these words, what connects them, and what’s the takeaway message. 

Flip That Flop! Activity 

Flip that flop is a very similar activity to changing the negative into positive, just deals with things in the past – things we consider mistakes. The aim of flipping the flop is for kids to learn how to turn mistakes into opportunities. At the same time, it teaches kids that mistakes are important and necessary because without them we wouldn’t be able to improve. 

You can start by asking kids to imagine a world where they could be anything they want at the moment they wanted it. Make sure to mention that we’re not talking about things or objects, but rather skills and events. If they wanted to be the best swimmer in the world, they would just imagine it and they’d be it! In a world like that, how much time would we spend doing something if we’re the best on our first try? It would not be challenging, it would not be competitive, it would not be fun after a while… So, what does that tell us?

This little mental gymnastics illustrates the untold side of mistakes, imperfections, and failed attempts. It is because of them that we try again, work harder, dedicate time, effort, and end up deeply enjoying the things that make us who we are.

Once you explain all this to students, ask them to cut a piece of paper and write a mistake from the past on one side, and the opportunities that arose because of it on the other. Alternatively, for the opportunities, kids can write their course of action, what they did, and how it changed them. 

Present Famous People Who Failed, Tried Again and Succeeded 

A growth mindset is all about believing that abilities and intelligence can change through life, that they can be learned, and people can improve. Well, there’s no better way to convince children that this belief is, in fact, the truth (even if sometimes it doesn’t feel like that to us) than to show them real-life examples. Learning how someone overcame their failures only to become known all around the world for their skills later is the ultimate proof that can’t be disputed. 

What’s more, some of these people might even be kids’ idols, which is an even bigger inspiration! If you know someone who your child loves, google them and see if you can find something more about their life – we’re sure that there’s an inspirational story to be told! After all, everyone who achieved worldwide success failed at least a few times before that (and we haven’t found an exception to this rule).  

Here’s our list: 

• Walt Disney – Can you imagine not having Disney today? Well, if Walt Disney gave up and didn’t believe in himself when he was fired from the Kansas City Star because he allegedly “lacked imagination and creativity”, we wouldn’t have Disney today. 
• Oprah Winfrey – Another mega-star who had to overcome setbacks and believe in herself more than ever when she was told she’s “unfit for television” on her first TV job. 
• JK Rowling – Again, can you imagine not having Harry Potter? This was also close to being true as 12 major publishers rejected the Harry Potter manuscript. If she wasn’t as persistent as she was, the Harry Potter story would’ve never been told. 
• Colonel Sanders – You might not have heard of Colonel Sanders, but you’ve definitely heard of KFC! Astonishingly, Sanders was 62 when he opened the first Kentucky Fried Chicken restaurant, after being rejected by 1,009 people he tried to sell his recipe to. That’s actually lucky for him because if they accepted, the recipe might have ended up in some restaurant menu, and he wouldn’t have KFC!

The Unequal Opportunities Running Challenge

For this activity, we were inspired by a very popular inspirational video where people have to race for a reward, but some start from a privileged position because of who they are, and we twisted it a little. Our goal is to turn this eye-opening activity into a growth mindset challenge for kids, while still having the same powerful effect. How? 

Well, to organize it, you’ll need a bigger group of children. One class of 10 kids or more is probably enough. Then, you’ll need to decide on the running track, which should be long so that you can see which kids love motivation after a while, and which are more persistent. The point of this exercise is to arrange kids in a horizontal line and tell them that the student who finishes first will get an A or something else that’s really valuable to them. However, not everyone starts from the same place. Ask students to take one step forward if they have all As, and another step forward if they never missed a class, etc. (you can adjust these privileges, but they need to be unfair and related to the reward). 

What will happen? Some kids might get demotivated from the unfair treatment and give up before the race starts, others might give up somewhere in the middle when they see they’re behind. Some kids will definitely have the advantage because they started first or they’re faster runners. However, if the race is long enough, only those who are highly motivated, persistent, and willing to do the hard work, will get the reward. This is a nice lesson for kids who think that they will always lose to fast runners (people with talents) or runners with better positions (people with privilege). 

The Crumple Exercise

In this last activity for developing a growth mindset, you’ll get an opportunity to teach kids about the value of negative feelings. More specifically, to teach kids that negative emotions are common, felt by all people equally regardless of their achievements and that we should acknowledge them instead of avoiding them.  

To achieve this, write a bunch of emotions all over the blackboard – both negative and positive. Then, ask kids to think of a mistake they did in the past and write it down on a piece of paper (assure them that nobody is going to read what they have written). After this, tell them to crumple that piece of paper and to think about the emotions associated with that mistake. Finally, instruct each of the students, one by one, to come forward and throw the crumpled piece of paper toward the emotion they felt. Typically kids will throw toward words such as guilt, embarrassment, sadness, and anger. Circle or mark each emotion every time someone throws a piece of paper on it. 

Soon, kids will realize that two or three emotions keep being repeated by everyone. This will give them a sense of belonging – a feeling that they’re understood and not alone. They’ll also realize how classmates who they consider better or more successful also make mistakes and feel the same way as they do. The takeaway message is that no one is special! Everyone deals with the same feelings, just some of us have learned how to deal with them more efficiently. 

Before We Say Goodbye

Hopefully, you liked our list of growth mindset activities for kids and you feel inspired to implement them in your class. We tried to make all the activities easily adjustable to both settings – a traditional classroom or a homeschool setting. This way, regardless of your situation, you’ll be able to do at least some of the activities, which is more than enough. Couple these activities with our tips and resources from the growth mindset guide and you have everything you need to teach kids how to become the best version of themselves. 

Of course, our support doesn’t end there. Our team back at KidsKonnect strives to give you all the necessary resources, so regardless of where you live, you’ll have access to high-quality, interactive worksheets, lesson plans, and curriculums to build a fun and memorable lecture. Become a part of our growing community of teachers and parents by subscribing to our newsletter and we’ll make it our job to deliver to you essential worksheet packs each month.
Finally, don’t forget that you can find many other insightful articles on our blog, so pay us a visit.