Critical Thinking Resources

Critical thinking---that’s a skill I want my children to possess. When I was asked by Timberdoodle to review a couple of books from Critical Thinking Press, I had a hard time deciding which ones, as we probably could  benefit from many on the list. I decided that it would be a good idea to start working on critical thinking skills with my preschooler. I was sent Can You Find Me? 


This is a non-consumable thinking skills book geared toward preschoolers. When my daughter and I opened the book we were pleasantly surprised. Each page contained a riddle and pictures. My daughter was interested right away and wanted to look through the whole book. After looking, I sat down and went through a couple riddles with her. She had so much fun trying to answer the riddles. When we would get to one that was too hard, we’d skip it and come back to it later. Some days she could only handle doing one riddle, and other days she wanted to do a slew of them. When we hit a bunch in a row that were just a tad hard, I set the book aside for a week. We are still moving through the book and it has become a wonderful addition to her preschool work.

What I liked:

* It is non-consumable, so I can use it for the upcoming girls :)

* It makes a child think and reason. The child has to use the clues in the riddle and pictures to find the answer.

 
Well my older kids weren’t left out!  I was also sent Editor-In-Chief B1 to review.

Editor in Chief improves your child's grammar, punctuation, spelling, capitalization, and attention to detail using a standards-based thinking approach rather than drill and practice. This effective method teaches students to carefully analyze and edit stories that contain errors in writing mechanics and story details.

This series is geared toward middle-schoolers (12-14 yrs.) I had my 11yr. old son and 12 yr. old daughter work through this workbook. It was challenging work for them at times, mainly do to the fact that we hadn’t covered some of the grammar/mechanics, but it was something that challenged them in a good way. My kids used a highlighter and highlighted things they thought were wrong in the text. Then they rewrote the text so that the mistakes were corrected. We would then go over it together. When I saw that they missed things etc. we did a mini-lesson right then (Not all corrections were grammar-related. Some were punctuation, spelling, & mechanics). We will continue using this book and plan on adding Editor In Chief B2 to our homeschool curriculum next year.

What I liked:

*My kids enjoyed the challenge of trying to find all the errors on the page. It was a great way to see what they knew and what I needed to teach.

*Complete scope-and sequence of skills used are listed in the book, so that you can easily see if that particular piece will need skills taught beforehand.

You can view a sample of Editor In Chief  here.

I highly recommend checking out what Critical Thinking Press has to offer.

Disclosure:  As a member of Timberdoodle's Blogger Review Team I received the products listed above for free in exchange for a frank and unbiased review.