Understanding analogies and the ability to reason analogically (reasoning used to identify, evaluate, and solve an analogy) are important problem-solving skills. Problem-solving is an essential part of mathematical development. Analogies teach students to break problems down into their component parts, making it easier to recognize familiar formats that enable students to produce solutions. The Beginning level Math Analogies asks students to draw and verbalize their answers. The drawings develop fine motor skills, and the verbalization develops communication skills. The analogies in this book are designed around the grade-appropriate standards identified by the National Council of Teaching Mathematics.

Teachers loved Mary Ann Carr's One-Hour Mysteries and asked for more! In this follow-up to her wildly popular book, Carr offers five More One-Hour Mysteries. This book offers motivating mysteries that your students can solve using clues and logical reasoning. Your students become crime scene investigators, analyzing clues found at a crime scene and applying forensic techniques in their analysis. Each mystery includes a complete set of teacher instructions and reproducible handouts that may be photocopied for classroom use. This exciting book features the following mysteries:Miss Moneybags' Last Will and Testament, The Doggone Mystery, The Case of Forged Houdini, Who Took the Video Game, and Aunt Sally's Secret. What better way to motivate critical thinking than with a whodunit? Skills include deductive reasoning, inferring, taking notes, organizing data, and analyzing evidence. Get ready for real thinking combined with cloak-and-dagger fun!

Understanding analogies and the ability to reason analogically (reasoning used to identify, evaluate, and solve an analogy) are important problem-solving skills. Problem-solving is an essential part of mathematical development. Analogies teach students to break problems down into their component parts, making it easier to recognize familiar formats that enable students to produce solutions. The Level 2 Math Analogies asks students to draw and verbalize their answers. The drawings develop fine motor skills, and the verbalization develops communication skills. The analogies in this book are designed around the grade-appropriate standards identified by the National Council of Teaching Mathematics.

An analogy is a comparison between two things. It points out the similarities between two things that might be different in all other respects. Analogies cause us to think analytically about forms, uses, structures, and relationships. This all-time favorite resource not only gives students a chance to practice solving analogies, but also invites them to open their minds to a completely new way of analyzing the elements of analogies. Each page introduces several categories of analogies. Each category expands students' way of viewing the world and contrasting and comparing elements. Thinking Through Analogies also instills the tools whereby students can create relationships to enhance their creative and formal writing, as well as to heighten their critical thinking in test taking.

Students carefully analyze each Mind Benders® story and its clues, identifying logical associations between people, places, and things. The key is to start with the most obvious associations, then deduce less obvious associations until everything finally fits together. Includes step-by-step instructions and detailed answers.

It's never too early to start building thinking skills—skills that will spill over into other areas of the curriculum and into real life. Primarily Logic consists of a series of units designed to introduce logical thinking to young students. It is an excellent, easy-to-use starting point for teaching well-established forms of logical thinking. Each skill is introduced with examples, and then worksheets give students an opportunity to practice the skill. Group lessons and worksheets provide practice in: finding relationships, analogies, thinking logically using “all” and “none” statements, syllogisms, and deductive reasoning using logic puzzles. Logical thinking is both enjoyable and challenging for students as they build a sound foundation for further instruction in critical thinking. Suggestions for related activities are included in the Instructions for Teachers section.

In addition to waking up sleepy brains for the day's lessons, these short, fun daily activity pages develop the most important reading comprehension skill found on all standardized reading tests. Synthesizing disparate information and using the result to produce a reasonable conclusion is an essential skill assessed on standardized reading tests. This comprehension skill usually determines a student's reading score–and every Daily Mind Builders™ activity develops this skill. Each daily activity page includes two puzzles. The first puzzle is a short, true mystery. Its solution requires careful reading, inferential reasoning, and deductive thinking. The second puzzle involves a process of elimination involving the meanings of words or relationships between words. Try the samples and you'll be hooked!

Are you looking for a motivating way to combine problem solving, visual discrimination, and language? Word Bogglers is just what you need. A word boggler is a puzzle, a brain teaser, and a lesson in language, all rolled into one. These clever visual puzzles use words and phrases to build flexible thinking and word literacy. Each word boggler is a word or phrase that has been written so that its meaning is conveyed via the position, number, or size of the words and letters. Some of the puzzles are words while some are familiar idioms and clich?s. Thus, this book brings an opportunity to develop vocabulary and knowledge of often-used phrases in the form of motivating brainteasers. Each page features six of these visual puzzles. Students analyze the way the words are written (size, position, and direction) to solve each boggler and match it with its definition. A way to further reinforce the understanding of each phrase is to have students use the phrases in a written sentence. You can use these puzzles in a variety of ways, including: putting them on the overhead for a quick daily thinking challenge, using them as starting points for daily writing exercises, using an entire page for a weekly challenge, forming groups to work together on solving the puzzles, using them in a learning center, and having students make up their own puzzles. Bring Words Bogglers into your classroom today. The result of using these word puzzles is lots of fun, lots of challenge, and increased knowledge of the meaning of common idioms and words. Grades 3–6.

Critical thinking skills are more important than ever in academic and real-world situations. Daily Higher-Order Thinking provides you with daily activities that build and grow students' problem-solving skills in engaging formats such as logic and visual puzzles, brainteasers, creative writing, picture comparison, word play, and “what if” questions. Daily 20-minute practice lessons help students apply critical thinking skills across subject areas. The lessons develop students' higher-order thinking skills and allow them to integrate their learning and make deeper connections between their learning and the real world. Use Daily Higher-Order Thinking for warm-up exercises, extension activities, early finisher tasks, and small-group center activities to develop your students' critical and creative thinking skills. Available in Grades 1-6.

In Writing Detective®, students in Grades 3-6 act as investigative reporters writing articles for a local newspaper. To write the article, students must use higher-order thinking skills to synthesize clues they identify in the story to solve the mystery. Every activity requires students to put clues together and then evaluate the evidence to infer or deduce what happened in the story. The stories are high interest to make it easy to motivate students to do the analytical work needed to piece together the evidence and write the article. Before writing, students complete an outline detailing When, Who, What, Where, and How or Why. These fun, easy-to-use activities develop reading comprehension, higher-order thinking, and writing and organization skills. Answers for the Reading Comprehension questions and Outlines as well as Article sample answers are provided. There is a simple scoring rubric to make grading easier.

This collection of our most popular quick, fun thinking puzzles and games develops a variety of critical and creative thinking skills for top academic performance in all subjects. The book includes language development, math, writing, visual, spatial, and perceptual skills activities that build deductive, inductive, and logical reasoning. Easy-to-follow directions and answers are included.

Critical thinking skills are more important than ever in academic and real-world situations. Daily Higher-Order Thinking provides you with daily activities that build and grow students' problem-solving skills in engaging formats such as logic and visual puzzles, brainteasers, creative writing, picture comparison, word play, and “what if” questions. Daily 20-minute practice lessons help students apply critical thinking skills across subject areas. The lessons develop students' higher-order thinking skills and allow them to integrate their learning and make deeper connections between their learning and the real world. Use Daily Higher-Order Thinking for warm-up exercises, extension activities, early finisher tasks, and small-group center activities to develop your students' critical and creative thinking skills. Available in Grades 1-6.