Educators know that it is not only important for students to learn information, but it is also important for them to think about what the information means. Critical thinking books, workbooks, and games help students learn to interpret information and increase understanding.

Critical Thinking Books

Books containing analogies, story problems, and mind builders help students make comparisons and draw conclusions while relating information to the world around them. When they put books like Teacher Created Resources’ Analogies for Critical Thinking, Carson Dellosa’s Solve Story Problems Using Pictures, and Evan-Moor’s Critical and Creative Thinking Activities to use, they may be required to apply what they know about objects to form an analogy, visualize how to solve an equation that could arise in everyday life, or imagine a solution to a problem they have yet to encounter.

Critical Thinking Workbooks and Games

Encouraging students to depart from routine ways of encountering information and solving problems can help them exercise their minds in new ways. Different from reading textbook chapters, completing skill and drill activities, or even listening to lectures, are the workbooks and games offered here to stimulate critical thinking. The Plexers and Plexers Workbooks by Pearson Learning each contain a series of puzzles with clues that students must crack to solve pictorial codes for words and phrases. Whether used on their own or as a warm-up activity for vocabulary or reading activities, the puzzles require students to approach acquiring information from a new direction that requires a different type of interpretation.

Critical thinking games can be incorporated into classrooms as supplements or substitutes for other teaching methods. For example, the You’ve Been Sentenced Card Game by McNeill Designs could complement sentence diagramming activities because it requires students to create grammatical and logical sentences from its unique word deck. In addition to being used in classrooms, these games make great educational tools for home use. Before they reach school age, students can enjoy games such as the Pattern Play Blocks from Mindware that teach them motor, sorting, matching, and other skills. Once students have reached school age and even after they have grown beyond school age, they can continue to enjoy and benefit from increasingly complex critical thinking games.