Showing Results for critical thinking

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

Make equivalent fractions matter in the real world with this hands-on math lesson! Students use measuring cups and spoons to recognize and generate equivalent fractions.

In this lesson, students will engage in inquiry, a powerful mindfulness practice to work with judgements about oneself and others.

This lesson focuses on facilitating a rich classroom discussion around the purpose and methods of rounding numbers up to the thousands place. It can be taught on its own or as support to the lesson Rounding with Number Lines.

Help your students understand the connection between skip counting, multiples, and multiplication with this lesson. Teach it on its own or use it as support to the lesson Clap Counting with Multiples.

If young writers can learn how to write a solid paragraph, then they have the building blocks of an essay. In this lesson, students will study paragraph structure and practice organizing ideas into paragraphs.

Pow! Bam! Splat! In this integrated reading and science lesson, students will explore the relationship between cause and effect. They will get creative and create cause-and-effect comic strips!

This lesson helps your students practice making text connections so they can write about their reading. It can be taught on its own or serve as a precursor to the Reading Response Letters lesson.

Boost your students' confidence in verbally sharing their math processes using grade-level vocabulary! This lesson on rounding decimals can be taught on its own or as support for the lesson Menu Math: Rounding Decimals.

Invite your students to join the search for suffixes! In this lesson students will locate similar words that have gone through a suffix transformation. In addition to the mechanics, students will explore the meaning behind each word!

Teach your students to find the perimeter of polygons using real world examples. They will make polygon pictures using tangrams and practice finding the perimeters of the polygons in their masterpieces.

Do your students need instruction in how to find and determine the meaning of figurative language? In this lesson, students will explore the exaggerations found in hyperbole and elements of idioms.

This lesson will help your young writers develop a claim, or thesis, and construct an argument around it. You may have students complete the essay by continuing the process with the lesson Literary Argument Writing: Drafting Your Essay.