Free-time fun in 15 minutes or less! Each of the 24 creative, yet challenging, crossword puzzles in this unit focus on: Combination Words (smoke + fog = smog) Short-Form Words (gymnasium = gym) Contractions (he will = he’ll) Abbreviations (gallon = gal.) Compound Words (green + house = greenhouse) In some exercises, a list of words are featured and clues are given. In others, questions are simply posed. Comprehension skills are given a great workout with these activities.

“Evaluation” is the most abstract and complex level of critical thinking. To evaluate or make judgments, students must accept a given criteria as the standard before being able to come to an accurate conclusion.The 25 lessons in this unit provide practice with personal values, accuracy of facts, recognizing bias, and using reference sources.Example: “You want to go to a summer camp. What makes a good one?”The sequential activities featured here are sure to develop critical thinking skills.

“Synthesis” is the ability to combine parts of a whole in new and different ways. It requires students to think flexibly, determine alternatives, and find new ways to accomplish a given task. A more advanced level of abstract thinking is needed for synthesis. The 25 lessons in this unit encourage students to go beyond the obvious to more original thoughts. Example: An illustration of a bulb connected to a battery is presented. “Electricity is stored in a battery.” Look at the accompanying pictures of batteries, wires, and light bulbs. “Which bulbs do you think will light up?”The sequential activities featured here are sure to develop critical thinking skills.

Applying information. “Application” is the use of information that is recalled and understood. When students use acquired facts and skills in a new situation, they are practicing the transfer of solutions from one problem to another. The 26 lessons in this unit provide plenty of practice in applying knowledge to practical situations. Students are asked to do alphabetical ordering, work with dictionary definitions, sequence time/size/money, compare shapes, finish sentences, and more using information provided or recalled.

Promote thinking!Analysis is the ability to break a whole into its component parts and understand how each functions as part of the whole. The ability to reason logically is a major skill at this step of the critical thinking process. The 27 lessons in this unit include a variety of analogies and puzzles. As students work the exercises they learn to examine the whole, make judgments about the pieces, and finally see how these pieces relate to each other.Example: “Hoot. Clang. Creak. Yelp. Whinny…: A door that needs oiling would ____. A hungryHorse would ____. A frightened puppy would ____.”These sequential activities are sure to improve thinking and logic skills. And, because they seem more like games than work, students will have loads of fun.

Reasonable thinking! The 22 lessons in this unit cover five major areas of reasoning skills. The sequential activities featured here will most certainly help young learners develop critical thinking skills.Real vs. Make-believe: A fairy godmother? A bumpy road? A magic banana?Inferring: What does not belong? “Happy: humming a merry tune, a lost kitten, a closed door…”Fact vs. Opinion: Write one fact and one opinion about this picture of an alligator.Assumptions: “If the thermometer is at 5 degrees, you can assume you are going to feel _____.”Cause and Effect: “Sara took a basket on her walk because she knew the berries were ripe. Cause? Effect?”

Putting knowledge to work. Comprehension implies the understanding of information and the ability to see basic relationships. The 26 lessons in this unit provide plenty of practice in areas that emphasize comprehension. Students are involved in interpreting verbal and visual communications (A dinosaur “size chart” is provided. “How long was the Tyrannosaurus?”), making comparisons (Using the Table of Contents provided: “Which chapter is shorter?”), and finding relationships with the “big picture” (Using the map of the Lone Star Camp: “Where does the trail from the cabin lead?”). The sequential activities featured here are sure to develop critical thinking skills.

Teach problem solving! The 24 lessons in this unit are designed to help students turn abstract problems into graphic, semi-concrete formats. This ability is an important step in the development of effective problem-solving techniques. Example: "Planted four rows of flowers. Six plants in each row." How many flowers? Draw a picture to show how to solve each problem.By creating a visual representation of the components of a problem, students can more easily perform necessary operations. They can also see the logic – or absence of logic – in their solutions. The sequential activities featured here will most certainly help young learners develop critical thinking skills.

Informed thinking! “Knowledge” is defined by Bloom’s Taxonomy as “the obtaining and recall of information.” As such, it is an important step in building effective thinking and problem solving skills. When students are able to absorb information or easily recall it, their ability to effectively think and reason is expanded.The 26 lessons in this unit provide plenty of practice in areas that emphasize knowledge.Classifying shapes and words: (“Things you put air in: beach ball, saw, tires, skis…”), analyzing images: (“If the sentence is a FACT you can prove by the picture, write FACT on the line.”), distinguishing real from make-believe (“Mr. Bibble sent his nephew a monkey that could make a banana cream pie.”) are just some of the exercises featured.

Reading. Thinking. Writing! Illustrations and corresponding sentences are combined in the 25 lessons featured here to challenge discrimination and comparison abilities. Rather than multiple choice answers or underlined responses, students are asked to write complete sentences. This extra step will reinforce the thinking process as students work through each of the intriguing activities. Difficulty progresses with each exercise.

Learning a life skill! At a very young age, children encounter the need to follow verbal directions. As they grow, the directions become more complex. The 23 lessons in this unit use math, language, art, and listening skills - as well as reasoning, logic, and visualization - to develop critical thinking. The primary purpose of each activity is to focus on following directions. Example: Count all the members of your family - even your pets. How many feet are in your family?The activities featured begin at a fairly simple level and gradually become more difficult.

Reading made fun! This book is packed with 20 fully-illustrated, easy-to-read, comprehension activities for the beginning reader. Students are first challenged to match three sentences with three images: “The tree lost its leaves.” “I like to fly a kite.” “Herb is brushing his teeth.” To practice writing, spelling, and penmanship, pupils are then asked to create their own sentence to describe a fourth image. Coloring all the drawings adds a creative flair to each exercise.

Help your students develop important writing skills with this fun and delightfully illustrated book. Easy Sentence Writing will inspire students to develop sentence-writing skills. Four formats add variety as they write original sentences, create sentences from pictures, form sentences from a word bank and more.

Motivate reluctant writers! Five different formats are utilized in this 25-lesson unit to help stimulate creative writing:Story Starters:“I woke up in the morning and discovered I was 7 feet tall!”Topics with Corresponding Word Lists:“Use these words to write a story: beach, sand, buried…”Q&A:“Imagine you are the Statue of Liberty. What interesting things have you seen?”Visual Representation:“Write a story to tell what you think has happened in this picture.”News Story Completion:“Farmer Says Neighbors Are Aliens: Write a news story telling the who, what, where and when.”

Putting things in order! This lesson unit features 24 straight-edge jigsaw puzzles – each accompanied by sentence writing and picture coloring activities. The exercises are designed to improve visual perception, writing, vocabulary, fine motor, and sequencing skills. After cutting out the puzzle pieces, students paste them together in sequential order. Once completed, students are challenged to use the related vocabulary words in a sentence. This is a great book for visual learners!

Snip. Snip! Color, cut, and paste to improve eye-hand coordination. Students will get loads of practice honing their fine motor skills with the 24 creative cutting activities in this book. Whether using a scissors to divide a picture into pieces before pasting it back together or snipping out images of fish to be pasted into a fishbowl, children are sure to have fun while learning.

This book makes introducing children to vocabulary's A, E, I, O, U's a snap.Designed specifically for learning the basic beginning skills of vowel sounds, this starter book features 28 pages of fancifully illustrated activities. Visual word games and vowel tracing will instill the familiarity needed to encourage reading success.

This 20-lesson unit is designed to help teachers evaluate students’ ability to understand and appropriately respond to verbal information. The exercises may also be used to assist in the development of listening and following direction skills. “How would you feel if a bull was chasing you?” “Is a potato a fruit?” “Wink your eye!”For those students who find verbal response difficult, or to add an element of fun, picture response cards have been included.

Each of the 24 creative yet challenging crossword puzzles in this workbook put forth a number of riddles or rhymes. Twelve words are featured with each puzzle. Riddle and Rhyme clues challenge students to ponder the appropriate answer. Examples: Rhymes with Choke: Scared, Smoke, Donate... I direct a group of musicians: Puppets, Butcher, Conductor... Comprehension skills are given a great workout with these activities.

Building writing confidence and give students are reason to write! Skills Covered Include: - Writing messages - Jotting down notes - Creating a sign or a poster - Writing a friendly letter, form letter, and a social note - Addressing an envelope - And more! All these activities are put to practice by the 29 lessons in this learning unit. Each of the motivating exercises boost vocabulary development, clarity, conciseness, order, and form. Best of all, students will have fun writing.