This week at my practicum school, I targetted my lesson towards building self-confidence and a growth mindset with my students. I started my lesson by showing my students a picture of me when I was in Grade 1. I told my students about my story and how I always told myself “I can’t” because I was always afraid of failing. I then told my class that I have since learned that it is alright to fail and to make mistakes – it is better to try than to not try at all. I did a read aloud of “Anything Is Possible” by Giulia Belloni – a cute story about a sheep and wolf who try to build a flying machine. Their flying machine failed to fly after a couple tries, but the characters persevered and succeeded in  the end.

We had a discussion about how it feels when we say “I can’t” to ourselves, with students commenting that it made them feel “sad” and “lonely.” Our class then brainstormed some phrases to say to ourselves instead of saying “I can’t.”  The students were involved and came up with some great phrases – some that I had not even thought of myself! In the end, we said all of the phrases together as a class. We then transitioned into journal time, where the students wrote something that they are good at doing and how it makes them feel when they do it. There were some great responses! Overall the lesson went really well and I am excited to continue to implement more lessons similar to this during my long practicum.