Building Thinking Skills
The Critical Thinking Co. aims to develop children’s critical thinking skills and empower the mind. Critical thinking is a skill that most parents and educators agree is important, yet people have different ideas about what critical thinking is and how it can be taught and learned. The Critical Thinking Co. defines it as follows:
“Critical thinking is the identification and evaluation of evidence to guide decision making. A critical thinker uses broad in-depth analysis of evidence to make decisions and communicate his/her beliefs clearly and accurately.”
I received two products from The Critical Thinking Co. for revew: Building Thinking Skills Beginning and Building Thinking Skills Level 1, so both my 3-year-old and 7-year-old daughters had a book geared toward their level to use. The Beginning level is for ages 3-4, and Level 1 is for grades 2 and 3. Both of the workbooks are large and have a variety of activities and exercises.
The Beginning book is a series of “question and answer puzzles to improve academic performance” and includes skill development in topics such as colors, similar and different, sequencing, mazes, vocabulary development, shapes, and analogies. The pages are colorful and engaging, and Jemma loves pointing out the visuals and going through the exercises and puzzles with me. The Skills Matrix and Concept Matrix allow parents to find particular areas to work on. You can see a sample page below; click on the image to see other sample pages in this volume.
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Level 1 helps students develop critical thinking skills and apply them in different subject areas and “provides highly effective verbal and nonverbal reasoning activities to improve your children’s vocabulary, reading, writing, math, logic, and figural-spatial skills, as well as their visual and auditory processing.” My older daughter works on 4-5 pages a day on most homeschooling days and enjoys using the workbook; some of the material is review for her, and other exercises are more of a challenge. I’m impressed by the variety of exercises, puzzles, and activities included in the 364-page book, which unlike the preschool version is in black and white. You can see a sample page below; click on the image to see others.
I will definitely look at The Critical Thinking Co.’s other books and software, and I recommend these books. There are four other levels in the Building Thinking Skills series, and each softcover book costs $29.99. Bundles and software versions are available, and you can find free trial versions of some of the company’s software offerings on the web site.
For other reviews from TOS Crew members, visit the TOS Crew blog.
My 10yo son loves their “Mind Benders” logic puzzles – that’s the classic grid-style logic puzzles, starting with very simple 3×3 grids in the first level. This is a kid who normally does NOT like challenges or doing anything ‘new’… but he keeps asking me to get the next level, and he does these on his OWN TIME, I took them out of the ’school books’ because he doesn’t need any incentive to do them! He’s now doing 5×5 puzzles with less ‘obvious’ clues, and the occasional ‘double’ grid too!
We’ve also used their “Reading Detective” series, which is also really good, though not *perfect*… I’d give it 8/10.
I’d like to use more of their books but for this year, at least, we’re already well loaded with stuff to do lol… but I have been intrigued by the ‘Thinking Skills’ series so it was good to read your review.