Foster your kindergartner's critical thinking skills and see confidence soar! Children are naturally inquisitive from infancy, yet creative and problem-solving skills need to be nurtured as children grow. Like reading and math skills, critical thinking skills require practice.

The variety of fun and creative activities in this series will challenge your child to use higher-order thinking skills based on Bloom's Taxonomy. Every page provides a new and interesting activity that will help your child:
• Think outside the box and use higher-order thinking skills through open-ended questions and challenges
• Tap into his or her creativity with art projects and hands-on activities
• Become a better learner by practicing critical thinking skills in cross-curricular activities (based on science, math, social studies, and language arts content)

The 100+ activities are organized around these kindergarten themes:
• Animals: Cats and Dogs; Insects
• Transportation: Bikes, Trikes, and Wagons; Cars, Trucks, and Buses
• Plants: Flowers; Trees
• Places: Oceans and Deserts; Mountains and Plains

Kindergarten activities include tracing, counting, dot-to-dot, and drawings that involve critical thinking skills such as:
• Analyze
• Solve
• Identify
• Differentiate
• Create, and more!

Plus, each page lists the critical thinking skill(s) so that you know what your child is practicing. Use Skill Sharpeners: Critical Thinking for enrichment at home and help your child become a confident problem solver!
Includes answer key.

• Help your child become a confident problem solver
• Includes over 100 activities
• Grade K
• 144 pages

Foster your first grader's critical thinking skills and see confidence soar! Children are naturally inquisitive from infancy, yet creative and problem-solving skills need to be nurtured as children grow. Like reading and math skills, critical thinking skills require practice.

The variety of fun and creative activities in this series will challenge your child to use higher-order thinking skills based on Bloom's Taxonomy. Every page provides a new and interesting activity that will help your child:
• Think outside the box and use higher-order thinking skills through open-ended questions and challenges
• Tap into his or her creativity with art projects and hands-on activities
• Become a better learner by practicing critical thinking skills in cross-curricular activities (based on science, math, social studies, and language arts content)

The 100+ activities are organized around these 1st grade themes:
• Animals: Cats and Dogs; Giraffes and Elephants
• Plants: Trees and Flowers; Fruits and Vegetables
• Transportation: Cars, Trucks, and Buses; Planes and Trains
• Places: The Playground and the Beach; Home and School

Grade 1 activities include puzzles, word problems, drawings, and matching that involve critical thinking skills such as:
• Analyze
• Solve
• Reason
• Decode
• Create, and more!

Plus, each page lists the critical thinking skill(s) so that you know what your child is practicing. Use Skill Sharpeners: Critical Thinking for enrichment at home and help your child become a confident problem solver!
Includes answer key.

• Help your child become a confident problem solver
• Includes over 100 activities
• Grade 1
• 144 pages

The mind-building lessons and activities in this 176-page book teach topics and skills drawn from state and national science standards to prepare students for more advanced science courses and new assessments that measure reasoning, reading comprehension, and writing in science.

Students read lessons that include a variety of charts, tables, and graphs. Then they answer critical thinking questions to improve their understanding of the science concepts and develop their reading comprehension, inferential and deductive thinking skills. Students can't just scan the story for answers—they must carefully analyze and synthesize the information from the text and the charts, tables, and graphs to explain and support their answers.

Many questions in this book ask students to use complete sentences to explain their thinking. The ability to express their thoughts—supported by evidence—in writing, is not only important in science assessment, it is essential when communicating with other people in school and work. It also promotes better understanding of the concepts being studied. The questions in Science Detective® A1 are modeled after questions found on science assessments but require more critical thinking. There is a growing trend to evaluate responses to open-ended questions in the context of logical reasoning, and many science students score poorly on these test items. The carefully designed questions in this book will not only develop thinking, reading, and writing skills, but will also familiarize your students with questions found on contemporary science assessments.

Teaching Support
Includes teacher and student introductions, a chart of topics and key ideas to help select activities, and detailed answers.

Concepts covered in Science Detective® A1 include:

Physical Science:
Measuring Matter: Mass, Volume, and Density
Physical and Chemical Properties of Matter
Physical and Chemical Changes in Matter
Atoms, Elements, and Compounds
Chemicals: Helpful and Harmful
Kinetic and Potential Energy
Force and Motion
Simple Machines: Inclined Plane, Lever, Machines
and Work
Simple Machines: Wheel-and-Axle
and Pulley
Thermal Energy
Sound and Light Energy
Static Electricity
Circuits
Electromagnets
Electric Energy
Energy Sources and Conversion

Life Science:
Cells
Cell Parts and Functions
Reproduction and Growth of Cells
Genetics
DNA
Uses of Genetics
Skeletal and Muscular Systems
Circulatory and Respiratory Systems
Nervous System
Digestive System
Reproductive System
Classification of Organisms
Function of Plant Parts
Reproduction in Plants
Invertebrates
Vertebrates
Earth's Biomes
Ecosystems

Earth Science:
Plate Tectonics: Mountains, Volcanoes,
and Earthquakes
Rock Cycle, Erosion, and Deposition
Properties of Rocks and Minerals
Geological Time
Natural Resources
Ocean Exploration Ocean Resources
Earth, Moon, and Sun
Weather: Measurement, Causes,
and Changes
Classification of the Sun and Other Stars
Inner and Outer Solar System

• The mind-building lessons and activities in this 176-page book teach topics and skills drawn from state and national science standards
• Grade 5 thru 6
• Advanced science courses and new assessments that measure reasoning, reading comprehension, and writing in science.
• Answer guide included
• 416 pages

Engage your Grade 6+ students in thinking skills practice with Critical and Creative Thinking Activities! 140+ pages of fun, imaginative activities motivate students as they practice thinking in multiple ways about a variety of curriculum- and theme-based topics.

46 theme-based units make it easy to find activities that fit your core curriculum:

* Places: In My Room, At the Dinner Table, Outer Space, In the Wilderness, Eating Out, At the Movies, At the Mall, U.S. Landmarks, On the Bus, Mythical Worlds
* Nature in Action: Rivers and Streams, Rough Weather, Sharks, Bats, Arachnids, Predators and Prey, So Cute!, Reptiles
* History and Beyond: Ancient Egypt, The Middle Ages, When in Rome, Pioneer Days, Into the Future
* Technology: The Internet, Cellphones, From Here to There, Robots, Invention Convention
* Things I Use: Clocks and Calendars, My Clothes, Say Cheese!, Numbers, Glue and Tape, Video Games, Maps and Globes
* In My World: Tunes, Surprise!, Supersize It!, Friends, Holidays, Planet Earth, Nighttime, My Birthday, Bells and Whistles, Now You're Cookin', Leaders and Followers

• Imaginative activities motivate students as they practice thinking in multiple ways about a variety of curriculum and theme-based topics
• This resource contains teacher support pages, reproducible student pages, and an answer key
• Includes 160 pages

Reluctant readers of all ages are sure to have fun while they improve their reading sills with Mini Mysteries. Kids love a good mystery, and they won't be disappointed with the 26 who-dunits detective Sam Sherlock encounters in this reading comprehension-listening-thinking skills book. Question pages encourage fact-finding, analyzing, predicting outcomes, and more! 56 pages. Please note: Contains some mysteries that may be more appropriate for mature students.

• Reluctant readers of all ages are sure to have fun while they improve their reading sills with mini mysteries
• Grade level: 3-6, Interest level: 3-6, Reading level: 2.5-5.5
• Contains 26 who-dunits mini mysteries
• All ages are sure to have fun while they improve their reading sills with mini mystery

Move over Sudoku, here come Balance Benders™! You can use these activities as quick, fun logic problems or as stepping stones to success in algebra. Students develop problem-solving skills and pre-algebra skills as they solve balance puzzles that are more fun and addictive than Sudoku puzzles! Students must analyze each balance to identify the clues, and then synthesize the information to solve the puzzle. Try one—and then try to stop!

Balance Benders™ puzzles spiral—gradually introducing more challenging concepts to give students the confidence and ability to master algebra word problems.

• Children develop deductive thinking and pre-algebra skills as they solve balance puzzles that are more fun and addictive than Sudoku puzzles
• You can use these books as quick, fun logic problems or as stepping stones to success in algebra
• Children develop deductive thinking and pre-algebra skills as they solve balance puzzles that are more fun and addictive than Sudoku puzzles
• Answer guide included