Taking on contractions! This book of five boldly illustrated game board lessons challenges students to create contractions (he will = he’ll) and break them down (they’re = they are). While playing the challenging word games, students get plenty of practice mastering formation and use of contractions. A student contract, a pre/post test, and seven practice/review exercises are included. This 40-page unit includes an answer key.

“Evaluation” is the most abstract and complex level of critical thinking. To evaluate or make judgments, students must accept a given criteria as the standard before being able to come to an accurate conclusion.The 25 lessons in this unit provide practice with personal values, accuracy of facts, recognizing bias, and using reference sources.Example: “You want to go to a summer camp. What makes a good one?”The sequential activities featured here are sure to develop critical thinking skills.

Developing observation! Packed into this unit are 22 creatively illustrated lessons. Each boasts a drawing of a real-life situation complete with familiar objects. From “a visit to the ice cream parlor” to “a busy street corner,” students are given time to absorb the visual information from each picture. After putting the image aside, 12 questions are asked about what was depicted and students are asked to draw something they remember. Plenty of observation practice will be had by all as thinking and comprehension skills are given a workout.

Paying attention! The 30 lessons in this learning unit will teach students to listen, remember what they have been told, and execute the oral directions given. To begin, students listen as an explanation of each exercise is given. “Your worksheet is filled with empty boxes that you will begin to fill.”Next children are given specific instructions. “In the middle box on the bottom row, put an 8.” “In the middle box on the top row put an M.”While having fun with these imaginative activities, students will boost their listening, comprehension, and motor skills.

Paying attention! The 30 lessons in this learning unit will teach students to listen, remember what they have been told, and execute the oral directions given. To begin, students listen as an explanation of each exercise is given. “On your worksheets there are three rows of boxes. You will be told what to do in each row.”Next children are given instructions. “Draw a line from the fish to the ball; make it go over the pig.” “Draw a triangle in the middle box.” While having fun with these imaginative activities, students will boost their listening, comprehension, and motor skills.

“Synthesis” is the ability to combine parts of a whole in new and different ways. It requires students to think flexibly, determine alternatives, and find new ways to accomplish a given task. A more advanced level of abstract thinking is needed for synthesis. The 25 lessons in this unit encourage students to go beyond the obvious to more original thoughts. Example: An illustration of a bulb connected to a battery is presented. “Electricity is stored in a battery.” Look at the accompanying pictures of batteries, wires, and light bulbs. “Which bulbs do you think will light up?”The sequential activities featured here are sure to develop critical thinking skills.

It's time to rhyme! This illustrated workbook of learning puzzles will assist students with the basic beginner skills needed to master rhyming words. Imaginative, hands-on activities are featured to help students adequately learn, clearly identify, and creatively write rhyming words. Whether helping Mr. Frog cross his pond by writing a rhyming word for each word on his lily pad path or coloring each "High in the Sky" kite that boast a pair of rhyming words, this book is one teaching tool sure to capture the interest and imagination of young students.In all, there are 21 fun-filled learning exercises including Search and Rhyme, Color a Rhyme, Sentence Rhymes, Picture Rhymes, and Crossword Rhymes.

Reasonable thinking! The 22 lessons in this unit cover five major areas of reasoning skills. The sequential activities featured here will most certainly help young learners develop critical thinking skills.Real vs. Make-believe: A fairy godmother? A bumpy road? A magic banana?Inferring: What does not belong? “Happy: humming a merry tune, a lost kitten, a closed door…”Fact vs. Opinion: Write one fact and one opinion about this picture of an alligator.Assumptions: “If the thermometer is at 5 degrees, you can assume you are going to feel _____.”Cause and Effect: “Sara took a basket on her walk because she knew the berries were ripe. Cause? Effect?”

A springboard for comprehension! The 20 cloze procedure lessons in this book will help students not only gain a greater understanding of concepts, but will assist in expanding their vocabulary.Questions follow each cloze paragraph exercise - thus insuring that students have a broad understanding of the story by incorporating thinking skills as well as recall activities. The questions involve inference, prediction, and relationship.Of course, creative content choice keeps it all interesting with subjects ranging from “dolphins” to “lightening” and “magical mold” to “the Loch Ness monster.”

The step-by-step lessons in this book will result in a complete understanding of the makeup and development of a paragraph. From learning the format, to identifying sentences that do not belong in a given paragraph, to writing a paragraph prompted by leading questions, to understanding the significance of a topic sentence, and maintaining sentence order within a paragraph, students advance to writing their own paragraph about a variety of suggested ideas. Clearly-stated examples and plentiful practice reinforce comprehension and retention of paragraph development skills. Clever illustrations and high-interest subject matter add to the effectiveness of this comprehensive teaching aid.

Being able to determine main ideas is crucial to writing book reports, outlining, reading social studies and science materials, and general reading comprehension. That is why the lessons in this unit are so important.The 26 exercises in found here have been designed to help develop a thinking process for finding the main idea. Students begin by finding topics in sentences, then identify the main idea in a sentence. From here they move on to finding the focus of a paragraph, writing the main idea, and finally coming up with summary sentences for books. 28-page book includes an answer key. Reading Level 3-4 | Interest Level 4-8

Boost Reading Comprehension!Whether being asked to read a newspaper article about an “Ice Man,” a description of the different parts of a castle, or a letter written to Benjamin Franklin, the 30 illustrated activities included in this book provide an interesting way to boost comprehension skills.By answering questions about information presented on Iceland, John Glenn’s boyhood, the different parts of the human ear, and much more, students will fine tune their reading, writing, and spelling skills.

Applying information. “Application” is the use of information that is recalled and understood. When students use acquired facts and skills in a new situation, they are practicing the transfer of solutions from one problem to another. The 26 lessons in this unit provide plenty of practice in applying knowledge to practical situations. Students are asked to do alphabetical ordering, work with dictionary definitions, sequence time/size/money, compare shapes, finish sentences, and more using information provided or recalled.

This unit of imaginary correspondence between animals will delight your young readers as they build their reading comprehension skills! Example: Howl N. Dog has eight puppies and every time they start to go to sleep, Ted E. Bear begins to growl in the nearby woods. “…My puppies cry all night because they are afraid that you are coming to gobble them up!” writes Ms. Dog to Mr. Bear in a letter. “I carried a bag of walnuts to the edge of the woods as a gift for you,” concludes Ms. Dog. “You may gobble up all the walnuts. Please don’t growl.” In addition to 24 reading and comprehension exercises, students are encouraged to respond to some of the letters, create cards for others, and even draw a comic strip.

Proofreading is the process of carefully going over a written report, story, or letter before the final copy is made. We proofread to be sure there are no mistakes, and when we find a mistake, we correct it… right? Unfortunately, for many students proofreading is a foreign concept. All too often students turn in a "finished" classroom assignment that is full of careless mistakes! This step-by-step unit was designed to help students learn, practice, and incorporate this vital skill into their written work.

The building blocks of reading! This 20-lesson unit is brimming with vocabulary-building activities that introduce children to verbs and adjectives. Word searches, puzzles, and color coding exercises are all used to teach the fundamentals. As students progress, they are able to identify and understand that “verbs” describe an action or mode of being, and that “adjectives” offer enlightening and colorful descriptions. Skills reinforced by these activities include recognizing verbs, understanding “present” and “past” tenses, learning about adjectives that “compare,” using adjectives to “tell how things look,” and more. Delightful illustrations keep students enthused while they get plenty of practice. A pre/post test is included.

Promote thinking!Analysis is the ability to break a whole into its component parts and understand how each functions as part of the whole. The ability to reason logically is a major skill at this step of the critical thinking process. The 27 lessons in this unit include a variety of analogies and puzzles. As students work the exercises they learn to examine the whole, make judgments about the pieces, and finally see how these pieces relate to each other.Example: “Hoot. Clang. Creak. Yelp. Whinny…: A door that needs oiling would ____. A hungryHorse would ____. A frightened puppy would ____.”These sequential activities are sure to improve thinking and logic skills. And, because they seem more like games than work, students will have loads of fun.