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Readings and musings

Notes on Mind in the Making by Ellen Galinsky

7/5/2018

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As we were touring way too many preschools, I got to take a peek into many of their teacher and parent libraries (or their directors' offices), and one book I kept seeing was ​Mind in the Making: The Seven Essential Life Skills Every Child Needs by Ellen Galinsky. I got a chance to read it recently, and I found it has a good concise summary of much of the research on childhood learning to date and many of the lessons I had read in other books. I personally learned more from Einstein Never Used Flashcards by Kathy Hirsh-Pasek (whom Ellen cites many times in her book), but Ellen's book was still informative and interesting.

The parts that I found most useful were the concrete examples of games and activities that can help develop some of the "essential life skills" she mentions. It's always a balancing act between letting kids just follow their own self-directed learning adventures and coming up with suggestions of activities or games as the parent. This book provides lots of ideas to consider when needing to be more of a guide or when helping to foster a child's personal interest, which Galinsky calls the child's personal "lemonade stand."

My full notes on the book are below.

​Intro
7 Key life skills
focus and self control 
Perspective taking
Communicating
Making connections. Playing matching games with objects by color or size or shape
Critical thinking. Ask questions about ads when see them with kids
Taking on challenges. Growth mindset. Praise effort not result 
Self directed engaged learning. Community of learners motivating each other

Language sense, number sense, people sense already in babies
Executive functions of brain
​
1 purpose and self control. Attention please
Focus
Cognitive flexibility
Working memory
Inhibitory control
Change of scene to focus
Stress worsens focus
Help kids learn to get themselves back into control
Promote kids to have lemonade stands
Play Games that promote paying attention
I spy
Guessing games like I’m thinking of an animal whose name sounds like rat
I see something yellow or square 
Red light green light
Musical chairs
Vowel walk
Read stories and listen
Tools of the mind curriculum
Sorting games by color and shape and change rules each time
encourage kids to make up scenarios and games
Make up story one person at a time
Give kids puzzles
Working memory play games with rules like Simon says
Give more than one action at a time to make more complex
Identify music and instruments in songs listening
Have children make plans and follow through on them
Ask kids to make choice of first activity during circle time and discussion of what they did
Play games where kids can’t be on autopilot
Peg tapping game where kids do opposite of what you do in tapping pattern
Name opposite time of day from picture seen
Stroop light exercises
Word red written in green print and ask to say color seen not word written 
Do opposite of what Simon says
Say tin 15 times and ask what aluminum can made of 
Say yolk 10 times and ask what white part of egg called
Computer games where have to do opposite of intuition
Practice speaking slowly

2 perspective taking
Talk about feelings when reading books
Sportscast and repeat feelings back
Other oriented discipline
Point out consequences on other people

3 communicating
Special traditions like family sing or different family reading same book
Read a lot yourself so kids see that
Sportscast
Elaborate your child’s communication
Use sophisticated words including adverbs
Use extra talk beyond here and now like what if
Find the new in the familiar
Tell stories about your life
Games with rhyming or taking away letters or guessing words
Reading assignments when shopping or selecting cereal (any of sugar is listed after 4th ingredient)
Tongue twisters
Encourage kids to write
Take dictation from them 
Allow invented spelling and write correct spelling near it
Ask them about their favorite writing 
Encourage them to write to their favorite authors

4 making connections
Number sense
Object sense
Sameness and difference and relationships
Space sense
Help kids practice estimation and number sense
Math board games like shoots and ladders
Be a guide when playing with kid instead of telling them what to do
Play games where kids find way through space like hide and seek
Count things as you take walks
Give family work that involves counting like setting up table settings, managing allowances
Sorting games

5 critical thinking
Separating fact from fiction 
Knowing whom to ask for help
Promote kids curiosity by letting them solve problems themselves
Help them create their own experiments
Help kids find other experts to learn from
Help kids evaluate info from others
Promote critical viewing skills. Dissect ads you see. 

6 taking on challenges
learning to deal with stressful situations
Promote goodness of expectations 
Accept kids temperament
Give child control over managing their own stesss
Ask for their ideas
Ask kids to come up with own consequences
If child is shy, let them watch new situations first before engaging
Help child rehearse what will happen when guest visits or child goes somewhere
Promote your child’s own lemonade stands
Kids interests and passions
Cultivate growth mindset
Learn that brain has muscle which can grow with practice
Praise effort and strategies not personality

7 self directed engaged learning
Help kids set and work towards own goals
Ask questions that elaborate on the things kids say
Help kids be accountable
Catch children doing something positive
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