Young mathematicians practice their reasoning as well as adding and subtracting skills with this worksheet that includes five simple word problems about birthdays. Learners are give pictures of birthday cakes and based on the number of...

Teach your readers to be critical thinkers. A strategy is outlined that can be used to compare and contrast entities. An example lists four states. The learner removes one state that "does not belong" in the list for some reason, and...

Shapes are so fun! Little ones explore, identify, and create shapes using tangrams or pattern blocks. The activity is intended to stimulate critical thinking while engaging learners through play and shape identification. Each child will...

Turn your 6th graders into detectives while growing their love of reading. Using critical thinking skills, they will be able to describe the five basic elements of detective fiction, read detective novels, make predictions, use the...

Take your third graders' problem-solving skills to the next level. Six word problems need a solution, but they aren't solvable in their current forms. Learners explain the piece of missing information that they need to solve the word...

What is and what will be the role of newspapers in the future? Keeping this essential question in mind, class members use print, electronic, and/or web editions of newspapers, to investigate topics that include financial...

This is a twist on the old "guess how many jellybeans" game. Using estimation and math skills, learners participate in a fun "mystery jars" activity, trying to make educated guesses at how many objects are in two jars. The basic activity...

Students read books by the author Keiko Kasza and complete critical thinking skills, and connections to different subjects. For this language lesson plan, students connect the books to language arts, social studies, science, math,...

Twenty-one pieces of tagboard can lead your class to a greater understanding of integers when you use them to form a human number line. After creating this math tool, two strategies for adding and subtracting will have your...

The lesson starts out with a brain drain, which is a great way to get students to activate prior knowledge and build lasting connections. They tell everything they know about prime factorization, use their knowledge to...

Not only is Wassily Kandinsky fun to say, his art contains tons of angles. Learners discuss Kandinsky's music-inspired abstract art and four types of angles. They search one of his paintings for obtuse, right, straight, and acute angles,...

This can be used as a critical thinking exercise in congruence or as a teaching tool when first introducing the concept. Four octagons are arranged in such a way that a square is formed in the middle. With this information, geometry...

In this critical thinking worksheet, students analyze 6 pictures and decide if the situation is possible or impossible. Students write the correct word on the line.

In this critical thinking worksheet, students complete problems which require abstract reasoning and logic. They complete logic puzzles involving sums of an array, finding the maximum number of integers under given conditions, and card...

Learners explore critical thinking strategies. In this critical thinking lesson, students evaluate multiple choice answers. Learners note similarities between incorrect answers and discover how to compare and contrast incorrect and...

Learners discover the game of chess. In this critical thinking lesson, students learn the rules for each chess piece and the game as a whole. Learners use critical thinking, problem solving, logic, and reasoning skills to improve their...

The class examines the new tax cut plan proposed by President Bush. They practice calculating income tax rates and interpreting the data. Then they research topics that are of interest to them related to taxes.

Upper elementary and middles schoolers discuss and solve real world applications of math. They use formulas for volume and percents to answer real world questions. In the second part of the lesson, groups write and solve word problems....

Practice basic operations for young mathematicians in fun ways! Using two decks of cards (Ace through 10 plus the joker), learners play "memory" by matching numbers that can be added to make 10 and writing number sentences. In another...

How can you tell if a number of items is reasonable? Combine math and language arts with a fun lesson based on Jeff Shepard's The Right Number of Elephants. After reading the book, kids discuss amounts of other items and create...

Critical thinking is an important aspect of mathematics — it's time to put your brain to work! Use this assessment to challenge pupils and test their skills. Concepts assessed include function notation, factoring, completing the square,...

Lesson 16 in the series of 28 is a mid-module assessment. Learners simplify expressions, write and solve equations, and write and solve inequalities. Most questions begin as word problems adding a critical thinking component to the...

In this logic worksheet, 8th graders work in groups to solve 8 math problems requiring critcial thinking skills.

Really neat! Kids choreograph a dance phrase and then measure the distance and speed of the phrase using a timer and a meter stick. They collect the data on a table which they use to determine an average. A series of observation and...