Critical Thinking Activities

Earlier this semester my friend and I were chatting about math.  She said that every Friday they include some critical thinking activities. I thought that was a terrific idea and back in late February I ordered some materials. We added some of these activities into our schedule as well.  We generally include critical thinking once a week, but sometimes we skip a week depending on our schedule.

Sudoku: The kids did Sudoku puzzles for the first time this semester.  A First Sudoku Book (affiliate link) is a really great place to start. We’ve gone through the entire book in the past few months.  If you don’t know anything about Sudoku, you have to use the numbers 1-4 (in the book on the left) or 1-6 ( in the book on the right) in each square, row and column. You cannot have the same number in any square, row or column. Once your child has mastered the four-square puzzles she can move on to six squares.

In order for multiple kids to use these (or for the kids to do the puzzle over again) we took the books apart and slip them into the dry erase activity center. Once LD mastered the 4-square Sudoku puzzles he set off on the 6-square puzzles in  Sudoku Puzzles for Kids.

Analogies: At the scholastic dollar days back a few months ago, I bought a number of analogy books.  Obviously I only paid a dollar for these. Hey! I see the Anaologies Grade 2-3 and Analogies Grade 4-5 are on sale once again for $1.00 (post written on Friday 5/18). I printed out the grade 2-3 analogies and put them in a notebook. LD finds them much too easy (but I didn’t print out anything from the next level yet), DD absolutely loves them (and finds them easy as well).

Logic: We’ve used a number of printouts from the Teacher File Box this semester. LD (age 8) was able to figure these out, but they were tough for DD (age 6):

We also got this book, Logic Safari (affiliate link). Again LD was able to do these on his own, but DD often needed help:

We also got some Critical Thinking Card Games which has a selection of different kinds of activity card — think about it, riddles, fact or fiction, how can you tell? and other thought-provoking question cards.

That’s about it.  Do your kids enjoy working through critical thinking puzzles?

Disclosure: Please note that some of the links in this post are affiliate links, and at no additional cost to you, I will earn a commission if you decide to make a purchase.