{"id":17780,"date":"2017-02-16T23:49:22","date_gmt":"2017-02-17T05:49:22","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.flandersfamily.info\/web\/?p=17780"},"modified":"2023-08-22T19:45:16","modified_gmt":"2023-08-23T00:45:16","slug":"building-thinking-skills-timberdoodle-review","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.flandersfamily.info\/web\/2017\/02\/16\/building-thinking-skills-timberdoodle-review\/","title":{"rendered":"Building Thinking Skills (Timberdoodle Review)"},"content":{"rendered":"

When we first started our homeschooling journey over a quarter-century ago, one of the staples of our school day was doing critical thinking exercises<\/strong>. I eventually built a huge library of books by Critical Thinking Press<\/a>, but the title we started out with way back when was the very first book in their Building Thinking Skills<\/a> series.<\/p>\n

\"Building<\/p>\n

After a major move six years ago, our Thinking Skills books got squirreled away in a remote closet and forgotten<\/strong>, so my youngest kids have not benefited from them to the extent their older siblings did.<\/p>\n

Fortunately, those critical thinking books resurfaced when we changed houses again<\/strong> a few months ago (plus the folks at Timberdoodle<\/a> sent me some new copies in exchange for this review), so we are back on track now, and those younger kids are eating it up.<\/p>\n

\"Building<\/p>\n

The workbooks are designed to be consumable, but I’ve always preferred to sit with a child on either side of me and work through the exercises together — at least for the beginning books<\/strong>. They think through each problem and take turns pointing to the correct answer.<\/p>\n

\"Building<\/p>\n

Thus, I’m still using many of the same books<\/strong> with #11 and #12 that I used with #1 and #2. Our original set looks like this, none the worse for wear:<\/p>\n

\"Building<\/p>\n

But the Building Thinking Skills<\/a> series has undergone several updates and revisions over the years<\/strong>, so that now the books look like this:<\/p>\n

\"Building<\/p>\n

The basic concepts are the same, but the new version includes more exercises, an expanded scope and sequence, plus — drumroll, please — an answer key in the back of every book!<\/strong> That was conspicuously missing from the earlier editions, which means that if a problem stumped Mom, too, we were all out of luck. Ha!<\/p>\n

The books use both figural and verbal problems to develop four important analytical skills<\/strong>: recognizing similarities\/differences, completing sequences, developing classification skills, and understanding analogies.<\/p>\n

\"Building<\/p>\n

I can’t help but think that all that practice they got on solving 2- and 3-dimensional analogies in Building Thinking Skills Book 3 (Figural)<\/a> helped when it came time for our two dentists to take their DATs! <\/p>\n

\"BethanyThe further you go in the series, the more detailed and complex the exercises become. <\/strong><\/p>\n

And, of course, the language exercises in the Building Thinking Skills Book 3 (Verbal)<\/a> are great prep for the SAT<\/strong>, as well.<\/p>\n

Visit Timberdoodle<\/a> to download sample pages from any book in the Building Thinking Skills<\/a> series. Each book can be purchased separately or as a component of several of their outstanding curriculum kits.<\/strong> For more information on each level, follow these links:<\/p>\n