Critical Thinking Skills

Comprehension skills will soar when you use the challenging and creative exercises featured in this 17-book series. You'll have over 450 reproducible, ready-to-go activities designed to make students smile as they practice key comprehension essentials including identifying the main idea, reading for details, finding facts, sequencing, making inferences, drawing conclusions, understanding analogies, evaluating information, and more. At the same time, they'll be practicing valuable logic and thinking skills such as classifying, analysis, evaluation, compare & contrast, and more--making this value-packed series a great multi-tasker!

Set includes:

• Relying on Reason
• Following Directions
• Similarities & Differences
• Drawing Solutions
• Comprehension
• Finding Facts
• Applications
• Knowledge
• Sequence
• Absurdities
• Classification
• Analogies
• Using Logic
• Evaluations
• Synthesis
• Analysis
• Solve it!

Grades 3-6

Reading Level: Grades 3-4

Teaching humor! It's not at all absurd. In fact, absurdity is at the core of both critical cause-and-effect thinking and basic humor. From slapstick comedy to abstract puns, absurdity plays a key role. Research now offers evidence of the value of humor as a tool for promoting emotional balance, stimulating intellectual growth, and improving physical well-being. In this learning unit, you'll find 24 absurdly enlightening lessons. The step-by-step exercises are sure to improve thinking and logic skills.

Grades 3-6

***Sold separately or included in the Critical Thinking Skills: 17 Book Set***

Using analogies to teach problem solving!

As students use clues to solve the puzzles, they must make comparisons, analyze attributes, find associations, use visual/verbal discrimination, and form logical patterns. The 21 lesson pages featured here first pose simple concrete analogies and then progress to more abstract problems. With these step-by-step exercises, children are sure to get plenty of critical reasoning practice.

Grades 3-6

***Sold separately or included in the Critical Thinking Skills: 17 Book Set***

Promote thinking! Analysis is the ability to break a whole into its component parts and understand how each functions as part of the whole. The ability to reason logically is a major skill at this step of the critical thinking process. The 27 lessons in this unit include a variety of analogies and puzzles. As students work the exercises they learn to examine the whole, make judgments about the pieces, and finally see how these pieces relate to each other. These sequential activities are sure to improve thinking and logic skills. And, because they seem more like games than work, students will have loads of fun.

Grades 3-6

***Sold separately or included in the Critical Thinking Skills: 17 Book Set***

Applying information. Application is the use of information that is recalled and understood. When students use acquired facts and skills in a new situation, they are practicing the transfer of solutions from one problem to another. The 26 lessons in this unit provide plenty of practice in applying knowledge to practical situations. Students are asked to do alphabetical ordering, work with dictionary definitions, sequence time/size/money, compare shapes, finish sentences, and more using information provided or recalled.

Grades 3-6

***Sold separately or included in the Critical Thinking Skills: 17 Book Set***

Using object classification activities to exercising important thinking skills! As students create categories using words and pictures, they develop analysis, discrimination, comparison, and logical thinking skills. The 22 lesson pages featured here pose classification problems–first on a simple, concrete level and then progress to more abstract activities. With these step-by-step exercises, children are sure to give their logic and thinking muscles a good workout.

Grades 3-6

***Sold separately or included in the Critical Thinking Skills: 17 Book Set***

Putting knowledge to work. Comprehension implies the understanding of information and the ability to see basic relationships. The 26 lessons in this unit provide plenty of practice in areas that emphasize comprehension. Students are involved in interpreting verbal and visual communications (A dinosaur size chart is provided. How long was the Tyrannosaurus?), making comparisons (Using the Table of Contents provided: Which chapter is shorter?), and finding relationships with the big picture (Using the map of the Lone Star Camp: Where does the trail from the cabin lead?). The sequential activities featured here are sure to develop critical thinking skills.

Grades 3-6

***Sold separately or included in the Critical Thinking Skills: 17 Book Set***

Teach problem solving! The 24 lessons in this unit are designed to help students turn abstract problems into graphic, semi-concrete formats. This ability is an important step in the development of effective problem-solving techniques. By creating a visual representation of the components of a problem, students can more easily perform necessary operations. They can also see the logic or absence of logic in their solutions. The sequential activities featured here will most certainly help young learners develop critical thinking skills.

Grades 3-6

***Sold separately or included in the Critical Thinking Skills: 17 Book Set***

Evaluation is the most abstract and complex level of critical thinking. To evaluate or make judgments, students must accept a given criteria as the standard before being able to come to an accurate conclusion. The 25 lessons in this unit provide practice with personal values, accuracy of facts, recognizing bias, and using reference sources. The sequential activities featured here are sure to develop critical thinking skills.

Grades 3-6

***Sold separately or included in the Critical Thinking Skills: 17 Book Set***

Just the facts please! The 23 lessons in this unit are designed to provide a variety of sources from which students extract factual information. The practical yet interesting formats encourage students to analyze signs, product packaging, advertisements, diagrams, receipts, and more. From money math and word problems, to shoe sizes and calendar questions, student will develop the thinking skills of analysis, comprehension, and application. They will also use language and math skills in practical, everyday situations.

Grades 3-6

***Sold separately or included in the Critical Thinking Skills: 17 Book Set***

Learning a life skill! At a very young age, children encounter the need to follow verbal directions. As they grow, the directions become more complex. The 23 lessons in this unit use math, language, art, and listening skills - as well as reasoning, logic, and visualization - to develop critical thinking. The primary purpose of each activity is to focus on following directions. The activities featured begin at a fairly simple level and gradually become more difficult.

Grades 3-6

***Sold separately or included in the Critical Thinking Skills: 17 Book Set***

Informed thinking! Knowledge is defined by Bloom's Taxonomy as the obtaining and recall of information. As such, it is an important step in building effective thinking and problem solving skills. When students are able to absorb information or easily recall it, their ability to effectively think and reason is expanded. The 26 lessons in this unit provide plenty of practice in areas that emphasize knowledge. Classifying shapes and words (Things you put air in: beach ball, saw, tires, skis), analyzing images (If the sentence is a FACT you can prove by the picture, write FACT on the line), and distinguishing real from make-believe (Mr. Bibble sent his nephew a monkey that could make a banana cream pie.) are just some of the exercises featured.

Grades 3-6

***Sold separately or included in the Critical Thinking Skills: 17 Book Set***

Reasonable thinking! The 22 lessons in this unit cover five major areas of reasoning skills. The sequential activities featured here will most certainly help young learners develop critical thinking skills.

• Real vs. Make-believe
• Inferring
• Fact vs. Opinion
• Assumptions
• Cause and Effect

Grades 3-6

***Sold separately or included in the Critical Thinking Skills: 17 Book Set***

Bolster basic thinking! It shouldn't be assumed that students will automatically pick up sequencing skills as a by-product of a regular curriculum. To hone this cognitive technique, it is best if students are regularly challenged to look for logical order. In the 26 lessons found in this book, students use numbers, words, sentences, and pictures to reinforce the concept of sequencing. The humorous presentations featured make each activity seem more like a game than a serious learning experience. So, these step-by-step activities are sure to provide loads of fun while students work to improve thinking and logic skills.

Grades 3-6

***Sold separately or included in the Critical Thinking Skills: 17 Book Set***

Promote thinking! The 23 lessons in this unit take a variety of approaches to identifying similarities and differences. Picture puzzles reinforce visual discrimination. Word search activities promote single-word and short-phrase analysis. Difficulty peaks with finding the similarities and differences in sentences. These step-by-step activities are sure to improve thinking and logic skills. And, because they seem more like games than work, students will have loads of fun while they learn.

Grades 3-6

***Sold separately or included in the Critical Thinking Skills: 17 Book Set***

Stretch logical thinking skills solving picture problems and world logic puzzles in this book will keep students' minds active and promote logical thinking. Children must learn to organize the clues presented so they can reach the logical solutions. In all, there are 25 exercises that progressively increase in difficulty.

Grades 3-6

***Sold separately or included in the Critical Thinking Skills: 17 Book Set***

Synthesis is the ability to combine parts of a whole in new and different ways. It requires students to think flexibly, determine alternatives, and find new ways to accomplish a given task. A more advanced level of abstract thinking is needed for synthesis. The 25 lessons in this unit encourage students to go beyond the obvious to more original thoughts. The sequential activities featured here are sure to develop critical thinking skills.

Grades 3-6

***Sold separately or included in the Critical Thinking Skills: 17 Book Set***

Putting basic logic into practice! Because logic is the basis for all reasoning skills, it is important to teach it in as many different formats as possible. The 24 lessons in this unit involve the basic skills of language, math, and visual perception. Students must analyze each problem, evaluate possible solutions, and follow sequential steps to arrive at a conclusion. The sequential activities featured here will most certainly help young learners develop critical thinking skills.

Grades 3-6

***Sold separately or included in the Critical Thinking Skills: 17 Book Set***