Showing Results for critical thinking

Transform the traditional egg drop experiment as you help students to engage in design thinking and develop empathy.

What do Malala Yousafzai, Al Gore, and Michelle Obama all have in common? They are all nonfiction authors with a purpose. In this interactive lesson, students will gain practice looking at details in text to identify the author’s purpose.

High order thinking skills are critical skills for students of all ages. In this lesson, your students will create word problems about money.

Word problems can be overwhelming to students, but if they have a tool to help them, they can handle it! Use this as a stand alone lesson or alongside Stepping Through Addition and Subtraction Word Problems.

Use this lesson to gauge your students’ basic comprehension of fiction text. If they can answer who, what, when, where, why, and how questions, you know they have a handle on it and it’s time to get into more critical thinking!

How can you see what your students are thinking while they read? Try reading response letters in your class. Students will practice formatting letters and learn to discuss their thinking about literature in writing.

Articles are a simple yet critical part of speech. This lesson helps your fourth graders distinguish the three articles and understand how to use them correctly in sentences.

Give your students the opportunity to explore the perspectives of different characters by using the "Circle of Viewpoints" Visible Thinking Routine from Harvard's Project Zero.

Don't believe everything you read! Teach students to differentiate between statements of fact and opinion. This important skill will help students become critical and discerning readers.

Introduce your students to divisibility rules with a lesson that encourages deep thinking and meaningful math talk between peers.

The order of operations is a critical concept for fourth graders to grasp in preparation for algebra. This introductory lesson on the order of operations will teach your students about the helpful acronym PEMDAS.

Your students will be introduced to the concept of a main idea in this fun lesson using props to support their thinking.

Give your students the opportunity to explore the perspectives of different characters by using the "See Think Wonder" Visible Thinking Routine from Harvard's Project Zero.

Teach your students to decompose factors as a strategy to find multiples of 6, 7, 8, and 9. This lesson supports flexible thinking and number sense.

Discover a new tool for creative assessments and lessons! In this lesson, students will investigate Adobe Spark using Agency by Design thinking routines to help them understand how they can use technology to communicate ideas.

Get your students thinking about how the number line and the word problem are related! Use this lesson alongside Get There On Time: Elapsed Time Word Problems or on its own.

This lesson gives students foundational skills needed to identify the author's purpose in a variety of texts. Use the lesson as a stand alone or as a pre-lesson to What Were They Thinking?

Get your students comfortable discussing their math thinking in converting centimeters to meters. This lesson may be used on its own or as support to the lesson Converting Metric Measurements to Decimals & Fractions.

Beyond just prefix identification, this meaty lesson taps into your students’ thinking. Using a combination of analogies, constructing, and deconstructing words with prefixes, students will learn the meaning and mechanics of prefixes.

Grid puzzles are a terrific way to practice thinking about math! In this lesson, students are asked to solve addition grid puzzles and compare processes. Use it on its own or as support for the lesson Solving KenKen Puzzles.

In order to build a strong foundation with fractions, students should be able to explain the concept and their thinking. Use this as a stand alone lesson or as a pre-lesson for Let's Play Equivalent Fractions!

Did you know that comparative tasks improve comprehension and help students develop higher order thinking skills? In this lesson, students will compare nonfiction texts on the same topic using Venn diagrams and performance!

Get your students thinking like mathematicians with this lesson that has them crafting questions for multi-step word problems. It may be taught independently or as support for the lesson Multi-Step Word Problems? No Problem!

Let's talk about the distributive property! Give students a chance to explain their thinking of how and why this property of multiplication works. This lesson may be taught as a standalone or as support to the lesson Distributive Property.

Students will enjoy thinking about subject and verbs as two parts that must work together to form a clear idea. Students will create mixed-up sentences as a class, then write funny stories that peers can revise.

Take your fourth and fifth graders on a deep dive into the civil rights movement with this lesson on Amelia Boynton Robinson. A key activist in the movement, Amelia played a critical role in organizing the Selma to Montgomery march. Your students will read, annotate, and analyze her biography through multiple reads, before discussing the text with their classmates.

Kids often need to bew taught that listening isn't just hearing someone -- it's thinking about what they have to say, too. In this lesson students will become introduced to the circle process and help put together guidelines for community building, and learn how to listen to their classmatesnot just quietly, but respectfully.

Which number doesn't belong? This lesson requires students to think critically as they determine which number is not a factor of a particular number. Teach it on its own or as support for the lesson Factors Over the Rainbow.

This lesson thoughtfully scaffolds the reading skill of predicting. Students are introduced to the concept and get to practice making predictions. They will apply what they have learned during a focused independent reading activity.

Help! The numbers in our equations have run away and left their answers alone! In this lesson, students will review their math facts and knowledge to solve Ken Ken like puzzles and bring the numbers back to their places.