Critical thinking is a necessary skill that all students need. Even students as young as kindergarten or first grade can start to learn this skill. Encourage critical thinking with fun, engaging activities that make your students think! To see more tips on teaching critical thinking, check out my earlier blog post.
how to encourage critical thinking
Critical thinking is being able to see and understand the logical connections between ideas, identify inconsistencies, and solve problems. This might seem like a tall order for our littlest students. There are activities that will encourage critical thinking while still keeping the learning fun.
- Fill in the Gaps – this activity requires students to use evidence and prior knowledge. Project a picture on the board. Then at the top of a piece of paper, students will write “What is happening in this picture?” At the bottom of the page, they can write their answer. In the middle of the paper, students should write down the evidence they see in the picture that led them to their answer.
- Build It – do this flexible team-building activity at any age level. Give the teams some simple building materials in equal amounts, such as pipe cleaners, gum drops, marshmallows, spaghetti, blocks, etc. Then give them something specific to construct with the materials. In addition to critical thinking skills, students will practice teamwork and collaboration.
- Open-Ended Questions – Read a story to your students and ask them questions that can’t be answered with a simple one or two-word answer. First, ask them to predict what will happen next or at the end of the story. Next, practice inference with questions that are not explicitly answered in the story. For example, show them a page in the story that shows the sun shining with leafy trees and ask what time of year it is. Third, have students tell you what the story is about in one sentence. This is a great way for them to start thinking about the main ideas of stories.
higher-order thinking with games and puzzles
Playing games and solving puzzles are fun ways to encourage critical thinking skills. Math puzzles, mazes, and jigsaw puzzles all require students to use higher-order thinking.
It’s fairly easy to incorporate this skill into your everyday teaching. Bellwork is a perfect time! I’ve created Critical Thinking Activities Task Cards for quick ways to let your students practice different types of critical thinking.
These Critical Thinking Activities Task Cards provide teachers with activities and puzzles to help students develop critical thinking skills. In this pack, you will find 80 quick start task cards – 4 cards per page. Your elementary students will love trying to figure out the puzzle or challenge and you will love knowing that they are using higher order thinking skills!
These ‘quick starts’ are ideal warm-up activities for the beginning of a lesson. Use them flexibly in any order, at any time. I would suggest laminating them for durability.
Today’s students are the problem-solvers of the future. If they are taught factual knowledge only, they tend to respond with conventionally correct answers rather than exploring creative solutions. All students can learn to think critically and creatively.
See my other resources for critical thinking:
