Inspired by an activity in Multiple Intelligences in the Elementary Classroom: A Teachers Toolkit by Susan Baum, Julie Viens and Barbara Slatin.
Take a square box (or die) and put 4 of your child’s FAVORITE multiple intelligences on the sides and two of your child’s LEAST favorite MIs.
Have your child roll the “dice”. Whatever side they land on, they have to talk about one of the ways they MOST enjoy flexing that mind muscle.
Next, you roll the dice. Now talk about the way YOU most enjoy flexing that mind muscle.
Invite other family members to join the game.
Do you find similarities? Differences? Based on your child’s responses, can you think of new activities or pursuits to which you’d like to introduce them?
Have each participant roll the dice at least 10 times. At the end, each participant should have revealed at least 10 ways they feel they are SMART. Note them on a piece of paper you keep handy. If discouragement crops up at any time during the school year for your child, remind them of all the ways you randomly discovered they were smart during this exercise…and how the other participants’ “smarts” differed from theirs.
Remind him or her to not ask IF they are smart…but HOW they are smart.
Extra Credit: Make TWO autobiographical die. Roll them simultaneously. How does your child like to use these intelligences in concert? (E.g. logical & linguistic intelligence together in whodunit puzzles…creating new lyrics for music blends linguistic & musical intelligences…creating art from natural elements…etc.)