The Critical Thinking Building Thinking Skills Level 2 School Workbook Paperback – January 1, 2006

As a high school teacher and mom of 7 and 9 year old girls, this is a must-have workbook. It's 368 pages of workbook including an answer key. The main reason I like this book is because it teaches critical thinking skills and logic in multiple subjects. Many workbooks I seem to find are only single subjects, but this focuses on developing and practicing thinking and logic skills in reading, writing, math and science. Additionally, each chapter breaks down the learning into a progression of critical thinking skills. For example, first starting out by describing shapes with specific descriptions, then moving to identifying similarities and differences, sequences and classifications of shapes/figures, then analogies of shapes/figures before moving into the same steps but with words and language. This workbook is the most comprehensive and holistic that I have seen. My girls enjoy it and enjoy the challenge of it. It can be worked on a page at a time or a section at a time depending on how much time you have. We worked on this book for my older girl and the red Level 1 book for my younger daughter all last summer. I have also seen this book used at several tutoring centers.

This Building Thinking Skills series was introduced to my older child in her highly academic school and was the book used teaching logical reasoning. In grade 2 the kids did the Level 1 and grade 3 they did the Level 2 and so on.After we moved, I continued using this series for my younger kid.The book covers exercises in various developmental areas: logical thinking, spatial thinking, descriptive writing, vocabulary, patterns, classifying and identifying similarities/ differences etc. I have not come across any other book that covers a breadth of topics as this series. The most appealing part of this book is that the printed letter size is quite big and directions are minimal so kids can focus on the problem without having to spend time understanding the directions. For a new exercise the first problem is always solved.My 8 year old finished the level 1 few months ago and is now on level 2. She loves doing this workbook and usually completes 4-5 pages at a time. It's a great supplement for the school, since most schools do not teach reasoning skills in their curriculum.

I bought this book for my son and I liked it the way it has been organized and different type of problems it has covered. It broaden the area of problems tackling skill of elemnetry schools kids which are not covered by any school educations.I would have liked it more if they have provided a digital copy of additional set of problems along with this book to let kids do more practice.

Works on problem solving in a way that the public school doesn't. Nor have I seen these types of problems elsewhere to this degree and quality. Provides a lot of pages to work on so a good deal for the money. Plenty of variety, too. The recommended grade levels seems to be a good match for my child. While she's not thrilled to do it, she doesn't really complain about it either. I usually assign a few pages of different things to do at once marked by post its. Only problem I've had with that is when she moves the post its if she decides she doesn't want to do that one.

I bought this book and the level 3 for my 12 year old son. I am impressed with how well designed and organized it is. It starts with simplest steps and helps him to build up thinking skills step by step. This book has a lot of figures and shapes in it and involves a lot of drawing geometric shapes on dotted areas that is very fun for kids to do. I am homeschooling my son for one year and I use this book every morning to warmup his brain. The instruction are very easy to follow and my ADHD son actually enjoys working on it !!

I ordered this when I began homeschooling a 7th grader and a 5th grader who needed to repeat most 4th grade skills. I kept wanting to incorporate the book into our homeschooling plans, but we had so much work to do that I never found time to sit down, flip through the voluminous number of pages, and figure out which worksheets would be the most helpful for us.Now its three years later and I finally take the time to look through the book closely, and I agree with most reviews that the book is too easy for a sixth grader: I would label it 3rd to 5th grade. There are some excellent sections on how to use graphic organizers to learn how to notice details in order to write decent descriptions, and 30 pages of beginning analogies at the end of the workbook. Some of the sections on sequencing and pattern-recognition, however, get a bit tedious.In case you are interested, here is a list of most of the contents:*Chapter 1 – Describing Shapes - this is the details for a description section I mentioned.Chapter 2 – Figural Similarities and Differences Matching Figures Which Shapes Do Not Match? Finding Shapes, Finding and Tracing Patterns Combining Shapes (i.e., if a figure were cut along dotted lines, which other figure could be formed with the pieces?) Dividing Shapes into equal parts, Paper Folding, Symmetrical Patterns Axis of Symmetry, Covering a Surface, Copying a Figure Enlarging & Reducing FiguresChapter 3 – Figural Sequences Sequences of Figures Turning (Rotating) Figures, Pattern Folding, Stacking ShapesChapter 4 – Figural Classifications Describing Classes, Matching Classes by Shape, Matching Classes by Pattern Classifying More than One Way, Changing Characteristics Draw Another, Classifying by Shape, Classifying by Pattern, Classifying More than One Way Overlapping Classes – Intersections (Venn Diagrams), Overlapping Classes – Matrix Deduce the ClassChapter 5 – Figural AnalogiesChapter 6 – Describing Things Identifying Characteristics Writing DescriptionsChapter 7 – Verbal Similarities and Differences Opposites, Similarities, How Alike and How Different? Word Web *Compare and Contrast – Graphic OrganizerChapter 8 – Verbal Sequences Following Directions, Writing Directions, Recognizing Direction Describing Locations, Describing Directions Time Sequence, Degree of Meaning Transitivity – Comparison (which occurs earliest, latest, in-between), Your Family Tree Deductive Reasoning, Following Yes-No Rules, Writing Yes-No Rules Completing True-False Tables, Following If, Then Rules *Graphic Organizer – Cycle Diagram, *Graphic Organizer – Time LineChapter 9 – Verbal Classifications Parts of a Whole, Class and Members, Sequences containing classes and subclasses How are these words alike? Explain the Exception, Sorting into Classes Branching Diagrams, Diagramming classes, Overlapping classes (again, Venn diagrams) Classifying shapesChapter 10 – Verbal Analogies (30 pages of introductory analogies)

Very well written and broadly covered topics. I use for my kids- one of whom has a developmental issue. For both it works miracle. Never seen a book which keeps them engaged and still provides enough variety and skills!!