Jump to content

Menu

Logic Questions


Recommended Posts

I'm beginning to look ahead at materials for 5th grade as I'll be making my purchases when we are back in the States over Christmas. What did you use and like for beginning logic in 5th grade? We've done no formal logic up to this point, but we have done word problems and the occasional analogy or brain teaser. And I'd like whatever we use to be less than $30. I haven't really researched this much at all, so I'm open to all suggestions :).

 

I did find this in the Rainbow Resource catty, has anyone used Teaching Thinking Skills with Fairy Tales and Fantasy? Seemed interesting, but I'm not sure it's what we need to be doing for 5th grade logic. Actually, I'm not really sure what our goals should be for 5th grade logic, so if you want to share that as well, I'm :bigear:. Thanks!

Link to comment
Share on other sites

well, we used the "Liftoff with Logic" series. We skipped the first book. My son did both the second and third book in the series during his 5th grade year. He did one exercise a day approx 4 days a week. it took him very little time to do one exercise and he was always happy to do it. We had no problem or difficulty from skipping the first book.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

We like Logic Liftoff series, Building Thinking Skills, and a variety of Perplexor books.

 

The first Logic Liftoff is very simple but builds the skills for the next levels.

 

Building Thinking Skills, you could probably jump in at level 2, my boys did level 1 in 2-3rd grade.

 

Perplexors are similar to Mind Benders, but you get alot more puzzles for about the same cost. There are about 50 puzzles compared to 15.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Here's what I've done: 5th grade "Thinking Toolbox", 6th grade "Fallacy Detective", 7th grade "Traditional Logic I", 8th grade "Traditional Logic II".

 

I had other materials like Mind Benders and Building Thinking Skills but we just never used them much. Thinking Toolbox and Fallacy Detective could be easily done in 1 year if your student is enthusiastic. My 6th grader did that this past year (I forgot to give the first book to her in 5th grade :tongue_smilie:).

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Thanks for starting this thread, Pata! I've used The Thinking Toolbox before and am planning on using it with DS 9 in 5th grade this coming year. It's a bit too religious for my taste (and we are Christian), but hadn't found anything else I really liked. I'll be checking out some of the books mentioned in this thread. The Fairy Tales one sounds really fun.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

OP, I hope you don't mind my hijacking your thread for a sec....

 

I see that a few posters use Thinking Toolbox for 5th. I went on the RR site to put it in my wish list and the site states that it's the sequel to Fallacy Detective (which I hear people use in 6th or 7th).

 

What's up with that? :D Can I use Thinking Toolbox before FD and start in 5th?

Link to comment
Share on other sites

OP, I hope you don't mind my hijacking your thread for a sec....

 

I see that a few posters use Thinking Toolbox for 5th. I went on the RR site to put it in my wish list and the site states that it's the sequel to Fallacy Detective (which I hear people use in 6th or 7th).

 

What's up with that? :D Can I use Thinking Toolbox before FD and start in 5th?

 

No worries, I was kinda wondering the same thing :).

 

Here's what I'm thinking (I like to have a picture of where I'm going, so I can set my goals)...

 

  • 5th grade-Adventures in Logic or Logic Liftoff series, may use the Fairy Tales book also (3 days a week-one puzzle/exercise a day)

  • 6th-grade-Critical Thinking book 1 and Fallacy Detective, may use Red Herring Mysteries (3 days a week-one puzzle/exercise a day)

  • 7th-grade-Critical Thinking book 2 and Thinking Toolbox, may use Red Herring Mysteries (3 days a week-one puzzle/exercise a day)

  • 8th grade-Wilson's Introductory Logic

  • 9th-12th-we'll pick up logic as scheduled in CW

 

But I'm still wondering what my goals for 5th grade logic should be, do I need to make sure to teach her certain terminology? Is is just to do puzzles and thinking exercises that begin to work those muscles? Would anyone who has had some experience teaching logic care to comment?

Edited by Pata
Link to comment
Share on other sites

OP, I hope you don't mind my hijacking your thread for a sec....

 

I see that a few posters use Thinking Toolbox for 5th. I went on the RR site to put it in my wish list and the site states that it's the sequel to Fallacy Detective (which I hear people use in 6th or 7th).

 

What's up with that? :D Can I use Thinking Toolbox before FD and start in 5th?

To be honest, I really wonder why the Bluedorns recommend using FD before TT; I think they're much better the other way around.

TT is focused on learning how to think. What's an objective source? How do you analyse ideas? How to brainstorm. Those are the kind of things TT teaches.

FD's focus is on informal arguments. What's a red herring, an ad hominem, a straw man? With FD you start analysing other people's arguments and I think that is considerably easier to do when you've already got the skills taught in TT.

Can TT be done in 5th grade? Well, I obviously think so. :) Just be prepared to go slow, read some lessons multiple times, and don't sweat if your DC doesn't understand a few of the questions. It's a pretty fun book with lots of fun drawings and humorous examples that have a lot of appeal to many kids that age.

 

I'm not sure this post is very logical. Time for me to go to bed. :tongue_smilie:

Link to comment
Share on other sites

To be honest, I really wonder why the Bluedorns recommend using FD before TT; I think they're much better the other way around.

TT is focused on learning how to think. What's an objective source? How do you analyse ideas? How to brainstorm. Those are the kind of things TT teaches.

FD's focus is on informal arguments. What's a red herring, an ad hominem, a straw man? With FD you start analysing other people's arguments and I think that is considerably easier to do when you've already got the skills taught in TT.

Can TT be done in 5th grade? Well, I obviously think so. :) Just be prepared to go slow, read some lessons multiple times, and don't sweat if your DC doesn't understand a few of the questions. It's a pretty fun book with lots of fun drawings and humorous examples that have a lot of appeal to many kids that age.

 

I'm not sure this post is very logical. Time for me to go to bed. :tongue_smilie:

 

Thank you for taking the time to come back to this thread and sharing your experience with both books. I really appreciate it. And thanks to the OP for being so understanding and gracious in allowing me to get my questions in. :D I've added TT to my RR wishlist so we'll so how it goes. Whheeeeeee :auto:

Link to comment
Share on other sites

But I'm still wondering what my goals for 5th grade logic should be, do I need to make sure to teach her certain terminology? Is is just to do puzzles and thinking exercises that begin to work those muscles? Would anyone who has had some experience teaching logic care to comment?

 

Personally, I think the goals leading up to and including 5th grade are just to get those muscles working. Teaching them to look at things in a different way. I believe that the terminology comes with whatever program you choose to use after that.

 

I choose a variety of books for puzzles. Each puzzle in a book is usually done in a similar way, even if they become slightly harder as you go along. So once you start to think in that way it becomes simpler to do.

 

For my 6th grader, we did Critical Thinking together. Then for logic puzzles I had him do different puzzles. We did the last book of the Logic Liftoff series, Venn Perplexors, Math Perplexors, regular Perplexors, and I have a game with word puzzles where you have to think through the problem to find a solution (I think it is called 30 second Mysteries). He would do a different type of puzzle daily, so that he wasn't just learning the pattern for one type of puzzle.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Join the conversation

You can post now and register later. If you have an account, sign in now to post with your account.

Guest
Reply to this topic...

×   Pasted as rich text.   Paste as plain text instead

  Only 75 emoji are allowed.

×   Your link has been automatically embedded.   Display as a link instead

×   Your previous content has been restored.   Clear editor

×   You cannot paste images directly. Upload or insert images from URL.

 Share

×
×
  • Create New...