Monday, October 1, 2007

Logic and Critical Thinking

I've been looking at curriculum for logic and critical thinking lately but it's just too much money. I have a few pieces of curriculum I need to buy and when our inkjet printer finally runs out of ink I'm shelling out money for a monochrome laser printer so our homeschool budget is shot for awhile. So I had an idea I thought I'd share.

I grabbed some scissors and cut some paper into a pile of slips. On each slip I wrote a different activity related to logic, reasoning and critical thinking and then the whole shebang went in a bag. At the end of school stuff a couple of times a week Catherine gets to stick her hand in and pull out a random piece of paper. Whatever is on the paper, she does.

What I put on the paper:

Zoombinis (3 slips because we have all 3 games)
Battleship
Logic Puzzle (Enchanted Learning has some and a Google search usually reveals more)
Checkers (a game with me)
Dots
I Spy
Logic Zoo

...And more.

I plan to add some more games, kinds of puzzles, pages from some puzzle books, etc.

Any ideas for additions to the bag are welcome!

9 comments:

Anonymous said...

Crazy Machines is a good game for this. You can do the challenges, build Rube Goldberg type machines out of a limited number of parts to solve a given task, or build in free play mode.

Anonymous said...

Kids sudoku games... I get stuck on them at times (the six square ones), I can manage the fours, LOL :-)

Dawn said...

I think I have Crazy Machines...I'll have to add that.

Cryptograms too! I'll have to make up some for Catherine.

C said...

Rush Hour!!

Dawn said...

Good one!

I passed up on purchasing that one for 8 or 10 dollars new in a clearance bin...I've been kicking myself ever since. :)

It's going on my Christmas to-buy list.

concernedCTparent said...

EdHelper has added logic exercises to the lineup. They are similar to the sort of thing you'd find in Mind Benders (which are, by the way, pretty neat).

concernedCTparent said...

Oh yes... Rush Hour rocks!

Dawn said...

I think I may have to break down and get an Edhelper subscription!

kitten said...

Dawn, I have Critical Thinking Skills books for grade 2-3. The teacher and the student. What I did with mine is use my copier. I'll give you a good cheap price if you would like to have them. Then if you use the copier, you can turn around and sell them yourself. I did buy mine new.