Critical Thinking

This 136-page book is comprised of intriguing activity pages to wake up sleepy brains for the day's lessons. Each activity page takes about 5-15-minutes to solve and develops the most important reading comprehension skill found on all standardized reading tests. Synthesizing disparate information and using the result to produce a reasonable conclusion is an essential skill assessed on standardized reading tests. This comprehension skill usually determines a student's reading score—and every Daily Mind Builders: Social Studies activity develops this skill.Each daily activity page includes two puzzles that are often solved in 5-15 minutes. The first puzzle is a short, true mystery. Its solution requires careful reading, inferential reasoning, and deductive thinking. The second puzzle involves deductive thinking, and is designed to build vocabulary and associative thinking skills. This puzzle uses a process of elimination involving the meanings of words or relationships between words. Try a sample and you'll be hooked!The best use of these books is when presented as a non-threatening, non-graded, fun activity where students are praised for all logical answers even if they don't happen to be the correct answers. Remember, in critical thinking, the journey is as important as the destination, and all reasonable efforts at critical thinking should be commended.These intriguing puzzles can also be used as a: Motivational beginning activity as an addition to the curriculum. Culminating activity after a lesson or at the end of the day. Fill-in activity when there is an awkward time break during the school day. Valid educational activity for students who finish assigned activities earlier than their classmates.

Hand-held flip charts make understanding learning theories and planning lessons easy! 5 x 6 inches. Take the mystery out of Bloom's Taxonomy with Quick Flip Questions for Critical Thinking. Learn how to ask questions, lead discussions, and plan lessons geared to each level of critical thinking. This hand-held flip chart helps improve thinking skills at any age. Teachers, parents, and students alike will find this an indispensable tool for improving communication, enhancing verbal skills, developing questioning skills, facilitating report writing, and developing higher levels of thinking.

Foster your kindergartner's critical thinking skills and see confidence soar! Children are naturally inquisitive from infancy, yet creative and problem-solving skills need to be nurtured as children grow. Like reading and math skills, critical thinking skills require practice. The variety of fun and creative activities in this series will challenge your child to use higher-order thinking skills based on Bloom's Taxonomy. Every page provides a new and interesting activity that will help your child:• Think outside the box and use higher-order thinking skills through open-ended questions and challenges• Tap into his or her creativity with art projects and hands-on activities• Become a better learner by practicing critical thinking skills in cross-curricular activities (based on science, math, social studies, and language arts content)The 100+ activities are organized around these kindergarten themes:• Animals: Cats and Dogs; Insects• Transportation: Bikes, Trikes, and Wagons; Cars, Trucks, and Buses• Plants: Flowers; Trees• Places: Oceans and Deserts; Mountains and PlainsKindergarten activities include tracing, counting, dot-to-dot, and drawings that involve critical thinking skills such as: • Analyze• Solve• Identify• Differentiate• Create, and more!Plus, each page lists the critical thinking skill(s) so that you know what your child is practicing. Use Skill Sharpeners: Critical Thinking for enrichment at home and help your child become a confident problem solver! Includes answer key.

These highly-effective, literature-based critical thinking activities develop the analysis, synthesis, and vocabulary skills students in Grades 3-4 need for exceptional reading comprehension. This 192-page activity book is especially effective at helping students understand challenging critical reading concepts such as making inferences, drawing conclusions, determining cause and effect, using context clues to define vocabulary, and making predictions and generalizations. Students read and analyze short literature passages and stories that include fiction and nonfiction genres. Then they answer multiple-choice and short-response questions, citing sentence evidence to support their answers. Concepts and skills covered include:Literary Analysis Skills• Define vocabulary using context clues• Recognize figurative language• Identify main idea, supporting details, and theme• Recognize literary devices• Identify story elements: theme, plot, setting, and charactersReading Detective® Beginning includes the following genres:Award-Winning Literature Excerpts• The Barn• Sable• Dexter• The Cricket in Times Square• The Stories Huey Tells• Sideways Stories from Wayside School• Chocolate FeverStories and Articles• Mystery• Humor• History• AdventureNonfiction Topics• Science• Math• Geography• History• Biography• Inventions• SportsThe Grades 3-4 (Beginning) level is organized into single-skills units with a concluding mixed-skills unit. Teaching Support Includes: pretests, post-tests, lesson guidelines, and answers with detailed evidence. Reading and literary analysis skills are based on grade-level standards.

This 136-page book is comprised of intriguing activity pages to wake up sleepy brains for the day's lessons. Each activity page takes about 5-15-minutes to solve and develops the most important reading comprehension skill found on all standardized reading tests. Synthesizing disparate information and using the result to produce a reasonable conclusion is an essential skill assessed on standardized reading tests. This comprehension skill usually determines a student's reading score—and every Daily Mind Builders: Language Arts activity develops this skill.The first puzzle is a short, true mystery. Its solution requires careful reading, inferential reasoning, and deductive thinking. The second puzzle involves deductive thinking, and is designed to build vocabulary and associative thinking skills. This puzzle uses a process of elimination involving the meanings of words or relationships between words. Try a sample and you'll be hooked!The best use of these books is when presented as a non-threatening, non-graded, fun activity where students are praised for all logical answers even if they don't happen to be the correct answers. Remember, in critical thinking, the journey is as important as the destination, and all reasonable efforts at critical thinking should be commended.These intriguing puzzles can also be used as a: Motivational beginning activity as an addition to the curriculum. Culminating activity after a lesson or at the end of the day. Fill-in activity when there is an awkward time break during the school day. Valid educational activity for students who finish assigned activities earlier than their classmates.

Take your students on a year-round problem-solving adventure with thematic units that hone in on the key skills needed to meet today's standards. With the changes in mathematics standards, teachers need a tool to help them implement lessons that provide a deeper understanding of math concepts. 180 Days of Problem Solving gives teachers daily opportunities to go beyond routine word problems to strengthen reasoning skills with practice that shows how these skills apply in real-life situations. Aligned with national standards, this comprehensive workbook prepares students for college and career.

A Kid's Guide to Tricky and Sticky Situations! This best-selling character education book has been updated and improved! It is great for helping kids learn how to do the right thing!Flat bike tires, forgotten homework, obscene phone calls—more than 70 situations kids could encounter when they are on their own. The prompts in this What Would You Do? book are perfect for skits, journal writing, or class discussions. The discussion of these situations will help children build self-esteem, confidence, and decision-making skills. It will also provide important practice in critical thinking skills, making choices, and setting priorities. This book will help kids (and their parents) discuss and decide in advance how they will handle things like: peer pressure, dangerous strangers, fears & feelings, cuts, bites & stings, fires & leaks, and natural disasters. This book is a must for parents and teachers who want to prepare children for the unexpected, puzzling, and frightening situations that may arise when they are at home alone, at school, or out on their own. 184 pages.

From SmartGames, the worldwide leader in single player puzzle games, comes Penguins on Ice. Penguins on Ice is an award-winning, completely unique game based on ancient Greek Pentomino...featuring puzzle pieces that shift in order to fit into place! Arrange the sliding ice blocks so that they all fit on the game board while making sure that the five penguins are in the right spots as shown in the included challenge booklet. With simple challenges for beginners to complex puzzles that will test experienced players, Penguins on Ice is a fun way to develop logical thinking skills and spatial reasoning abilities.

Winner of the 2009 Parents' Choice Gold AwardNamed one of the best educational toys by USA WeekendSolve the Puzzle to Stop the Stampede!The Story . . . The river is rising and the rapids are raging! Can you help the animals to safety by solving the puzzle? AnimaLogic is a brilliant new puzzle game that will have children working their brain overtime to solve these wonderfully smart safari stumpers!Lions, hippos, giraffes and camels are all waiting to get to the other side of the river. The animals know they may only cross the river bridge one at a time and they must travel in the proper order to safely arrive at the other side. With sixty puzzles and five levels of difficulty (beginner to advanced), these logic puzzles have players solving the correct sequence to remove the sixteen wooden animals from the game board.Expect sequencing, color and object recognition, and matching abilities to refine quickly. For logic building - AnimaLogic is progressively more challenging with each puzzle attempt - it's WILDLY effective entertainment! AnimaLogic captures the interest of the whole family.·Marvelously high quality, educational game ·Captures interest of a wide range of ages and abilities ·Game Contents: ·16 wooden animals in yellow, blue, green and red. ·4 lions—1 each of yellow, blue, green and red ·4 hippos—1 each of yellow, blue, green and red ·4 giraffes—1 each of yellow, blue, green and red ·4 camels—1 each of yellow, blue, green and red ·Durable game board ·Game notebook (includes 60 full color puzzles and solutions)

Mind Benders®, our best-selling deductive thinking puzzles, develop the logic, reading comprehension, and mental organization skills vital to achieving high grades and top test scores in all subjects. They're also great for developing real-life, problem solving skills.Your child will carefully analyze each Mind Benders® story and its clues, identifying logical associations between people, places, and things. The key is to start with the most obvious associations, then deduce less obvious associations until everything finally fits together.

THINK FAST, ACT FAST! Be the first to complete the challenge and get your brain back on track. Quickly slide and connect your thoughts into the right order, then, be the first to complete the correct action to win. These sliding puzzles have 16 different start and stop points, so creating a clear train of thought is always a new and exciting challenge. A clever twist on classic sliding puzzles, this game is perfect for solo solving or racing against friends!For 2-4 players, ages 8 and up. Play Time: 20 minutes. Skills: Fine Motor, Visual Perception, Focus and Attention, and Processing Speed.Contents: 4 Sliding Puzzles, 48 Challenge Cards, and Illustrated Rules.

These highly-effective, literature-based critical thinking activities develop the analysis, synthesis, and vocabulary skills students need for exceptional reading comprehension. This 208-page activity book is especially effective at helping students in Grades 7-8 understand challenging critical reading concepts such as making inferences, drawing conclusions, determining cause and effect, using context clues to define vocabulary, and making predictions and generalizations.Students read and analyze short literature passages and stories that include fiction and nonfiction genres. Then they answer multiple-choice and short-response questions, citing sentence evidence to support their answers. Concepts and skills covered include:Literary Analysis Skills• Define vocabulary using context clues• Recognize figurative language• Identify main idea, supporting details, and theme• Recognize literary devices• Identify story elements: theme, plot, setting, and charactersReading Detective® B1 includes the following genres:Award-Winning Literature Excerpts• The Cay• Sparrow Hawk Red• El Güero• The Moon by Night• The Giver• Under the Blood-Red Sun• The View From Saturday• The Trolley to Yesterday• "How the Rhinoceros Got His Skin" From Just So Stories• Face to Face• The Bronze BowStories and Articles• Mystery• Humor• History• AdventureNonfiction Topics• Science• Math• Geography• History• Biography• Inventions• SportsThe Grades 7-8 (B1) level include mixed-skills throughout. All levels provide an introductory lesson for each skill. Teaching Support Includes: pretests, post-tests, lesson guidelines, and answers with detailed evidence. Reading and literary analysis skills are based on grade-level standards.