Building Thinking Skills Book 1

Provides an ... effective tool for implementing analysis skills ... necessary for success in all academic disciplines.

Grades 2-3 Builds visual, motor, and critical thinking skills for reading, writing, and math. Develops the child's recognition of letters, words, number, and similar/dissimilar objects. It also improves sequencing and visual memory skills. Designed specifically for shorter attention spans. No reading is required. Directions may be read aloud as needed. Each book includes eight progressively more challenging skill sections with pretests and post-tests to evaluate students' beginning and ending skill levels."

A thinking student is an engaged student Teachers often find it difficult to implement lessons that help students go beyond rote memorization and repetitive calculations. In fact, institutional norms and habits that permeate all classrooms can actually be enabling "non-thinking" student behavior. Sparked by observing teachers struggle to implement rich mathematics tasks to engage students in deep thinking, Peter Liljedahl has translated his 15 years of research into this practical guide on how to move toward a thinking classroom. Building Thinking Classrooms in Mathematics, Grades K–12 helps teachers implement 14 optimal practices for thinking that create an ideal setting for deep mathematics learning to occur. This guide Provides the what, why, and how of each practice and answers teachers’ most frequently asked questions Includes firsthand accounts of how these practices foster thinking through teacher and student interviews and student work samples Offers a plethora of macro moves, micro moves, and rich tasks to get started Organizes the 14 practices into four toolkits that can be implemented in order and built on throughout the year When combined, these unique research-based practices create the optimal conditions for learner-centered, student-owned deep mathematical thinking and learning, and have the power to transform mathematics classrooms like never before.

This supplement explains how the practices outlined in the book "Building Thinking Classrooms in Mathematics" work in a classroom with social distancing or in settings that are not always face-to-face. It walks teachers through how to adapt the 14 practices for 12 distinct settings, some of which came about as a result of the COVID-19 pandemic. Includes updated toolkits and a recommended order for the implementation of the practices for each of the settings.

"PETSTM (Primary Education Thinking Skills) is a systematized enrichment and diagnostic thinking skills program. Lessons are presented in convergent analysis, divergent synthesis, visual/spatial thinking, and evaluation, suitable for grades K-3. The program aligns to the higher levels of Bloom's Taxonomy. PETSTM 1, the red book, introduces the six thinking specialists of Crystal Pond Woods: Dudley the Detective, the convergent/deductive thinker, Isabel the Inventor, the divergent/inventive thinker, Sybil the Scientist, the convergent/analytical thinker, Yolanda the Yarnspinner, the divergent/creative thinker, Max the Magician, the visual/spatial thinker, Jordan the Judge, the evaluative thinker. Included in the 24 lessons are encounters with the animal characters who are engaged in problem-solving scenarios calling for their types of thinking -- four lessons involving each character (two whole class lessons to help identify talented learners with accompanying reproducible activities, and two small group lessons for identified students and accompanying reproducible activities). PETSTM helps build behavioral portfolios for talented learners that support a differentiated approach to their education, integrates flexibly into any existing primary curriculum, and offers opportunities for learners with different strengths to shine"--Amazon.com.

Simple logic puzzles designed to help develop comprehension, deductive reasoning, visual tracking, and motor skills.

Building Thinking Skills provides highly effective verbal and nonverbal reasoning activities to improve vocabulary, reading, writing, math, logic, and figural-spatial skills, as well as visual and auditory processing. This exceptional skill set provides a solid foundation for academic excellence and success on any assessment test. The activities are sequenced developmentally. Each skill (for example, classifying) is presented first in the semi-concrete figural-spatial form and then in the abstract verbal form. Children learn to analyze relationships between objects, between words, and between objects and words as they: Observe, recognize, and describe characteristics. Distinguish similarities and differences. Identify and complete sequences, classifications, and analogies. These processes help children develop superior thinking and communication skills that lead to deeper content learning in all subjects. Detailed answer guide now included. Grades 2-3.