Building Thinking Skills from Critical Thinking Co.

[tld]

I'm feeling like I should incorporate some critical thinking stuff to our 1st grade curriculum for next year and leaning towards Building Thinking Skills (unless someone can talk me into something better.)

 

The catalog says the Primary level is for k-1. Does that mean it's supposed to be covered over 2 years? And if so, what do you do if you're starting it in 1st grade?

 

Also, the catalog says it takes 15-20 minutes a day. Is that EVERY day in order to finish the book? I'd love it to not take quite so long as our school schedule already feels rather full, but at the same time, I don't want to short-change this area. Hmmm...

[NittanyJen]

K-1 means it can be used in K or 1st grade.

 

How long it takes depends upon the exercise and your kid. I used a higher level book in that series when my boys were around 9/10 years old (younger is still wading through it) and I just tore out one page per day and let them do the front and back. Some sheets took 10 minutes, others took 5. My younger son goes through them much more quickly than the older one did, particularly for the visual/spatial tasks.

 

I find it is a quick, fun way to start off the school day, or when transitioning from reading first thing in the morning into pencil and paper work.

 

If you have not seen them before, it is interesting; each section starts off very, very easy (as in, Why am I doing this??? easy) but then each section builds in a very logical fashion to the desired skill by the end of the section. For example, you might start with describing a shape in a box-- ie, there is a square in the center of the box. It will ramp up slowly-- there is a shaded square in the center of the box; there is a black triangle to the right of the shaded square in the box; there is an open circle under the black triangle to the right of the shaded square in the center of the box etc until the end when you either have to draw what the directions describe, or write a set of directions to describe what is in the picture, then see if a second party can replicate the picture from your directions. The lesson is in giving clear, concise directions for a more complex task. That example is from the older book, but that gives you an idea of how it builds up to the skill from what seems like a very dull beginning.

[SereneHome]

I've used them since my kid was about 3. No way one book could last 2 yrs. He would do 10-15 pages in about 10 minutes - about as long as his attention span would last. And would be done with the whole book in a few months.

 

We both liked them a lot, but I think for truly building "thinking" skills, I would start with this one

 

http://www.criticalthinking.com/getProductDetails.do?code=c&id=04501

 

I don't know what it has to do with "tests" but problems were challenging enough that made him think.

 

We also like this one:

 

http://www.criticalthinking.com/getProductDetails.do?code=c&id=01330

[SnegurochkaL]

Hi, My daughter did Primary book when she was 4-5 years old and we zipped through it. We did Building Skills book 1 when she was 6 years old. We did some logic books from Prufrock press and last month she finished Building skills 3 figural easily. My child just turned 11 two days ago and she is an accelerated learner. My son who is 6 is doing book 1 now, we skipped Primary with him at all. It would take him not more than 2 hours to finish Primary. My third child is more normal, so she is doing Primary now( just turned 5 a week ago) and will be done with it by the beginning of the next year or earlier. I can not see it would take you 2 years to go through 1 book. You can start as earlier as 3-4 years old and he will be just fine. I think most time will take to draw/color/rearrange pieces than actually to solve the problem.

We really liked these books from Prufrock press:

 

http://www.prufrock.com/Logic-Countdown-P180.aspx

 

http://www.prufrock.com/Logic-Safari-Book-1-P182.aspx

 

http://www.prufrock.com/Lollipop-Logic-Critical-Thinking-Activities-Book-1-P185.aspx

[tld]

I think starting easy with DS is probably a good plan. We did Developing the Early Learner last year and he had great fun with it at the beginning, but was getting really frustrated near the end. That shows me that he does need his critical thinking developed more, and his patience, but I don't want to push too hard.

 

if I were to do this, would I need the attribute blocks from the company if we already have similar looking blocks from a couple other developmental activities we have (minus the hexagon)?

[morgan]

we have the primary book and it's the first book from them I have been dissapointed with. My dd6 loves logic and reasoning workbooks but this one is not a favorite. Personally, I would buy one of their other books or Prufrock Press.

[alisha]

I think those are great thinking/logic workbooks.

You could go one of two ways: Either give him a certain amount of time (since it sounds like you want less than 15 min?) and have him do as far as he wants then stop. Or you could just let him go until he gets tired of it and put it away for a few days, then do that again.

Since he's in 1st grade, he'll go faster than a K'er would, and would probably make it through the whole book during the year (if not early-they're FUN!)

I pulled out 4-5 pages and we did them once a week. However, I think this year, for my 1st grade son, I'm just going to give him the book and say go and see where that leaves us.

[stm4him]

We use the Primary Book for 1st grade. We do it about once per week and do a whole week's worth of pages in one day. We do it on a cleaning day or a day when we aren't doing a full day of school......

[tld]

Morgan (or anyone else), what didn't you like about the Primary Building Thinking Skills book?

[SnegurochkaL]

 

if I were to do this, would I need the attribute blocks from the company if we already have similar looking blocks from a couple other developmental activities we have (minus the hexagon)?

 

You can use the standard set you have and just cut out some hexagon shapes matching the size of your standard set. If I were you I would not buy a new set just for hexagons.

[Seeking Squirrels]

DD did Beginning starting at just shy of 4. We pulled it out about once a week and I let her go for several pages. I always stopped her before she wanted to. We put it away for several months when baby was born and we stepped back from school or she would have flown through it much earlier. Doing it regularly there's no way it would have lasted even a year. But with our baby break, we finished it right at about the year mark. I just got Primary and the attribute blocks a couple of weeks ago but we probably won't start it until fall. We also have Mind Benders and Can You Find Me. They've all been favorites with DD.

[morgan]

Morgan (or anyone else), what didn't you like about the Primary Building Thinking Skills book?

 

The second half of the book is tracing words and sorting things into (easy) catagories. For example: copy the words (fast, slow, short, tall) then draw a line from each picture to match the words that describes the animal. It goes on and on like this, fruit, family members, etc. It's a lot of copying and drawing lines to very easy associations in my opinion. Not a lot of difficult reasoning going on, even for the kinder crowd. I just think it's overpriced for what it contains.

[tld]

Thank-you, Morgan! That helps!

 

I'm thinking that I might just start out with the Verbal Mind Benders. Is that enough critical thinking for 1st?

[morgan]

Thank-you, Morgan! That helps!

 

I'm thinking that I might just start out with the Verbal Mind Benders. Is that enough critical thinking for 1st?

 

Since my kid loves logic and reasoning workbooks, we've done quite a few this year and I definitely think The Mind Benders and the Mr. Funster's Think-A-Minutes were the best. The nice thing about the Think-A-Minutes is that it is a collection of the various types of problems/activities so you have quiet a bit of variety. I would think one or two books a year would be enough at this age.