Review: Critical Thinking
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When we first received Language Smarts Level C, our review product from The Critical Thinking Co., my first thought was that this was just another workbook. However, I quickly began to see that this was a book that could greatly benefit my kiddos.
According to the website description, Language Smarts is a “320-page book that teaches the language arts concepts and skills students are expected to know in second grade.”
I’m not sure that it teaches the skills, necessarily, but it certainly reinforces them, along with other critical thinking skills, such as following directions, sequencing, deductive reasoning, and inferences. Other skills that the kids are learning our regular language arts curriculum that is being reinforced with Language Smarts include:
- Homonyms, antonyms, and synonyms
- Word families
- Capitalization and punctuation
- Subject/verb agreement
- Contractions
- Singular/plural
- Prefix/root word/suffix
It even includes things that I wouldn’t have thought to purposely teach elsewhere, such as palindromes and mnemonics (well, technically that did come up in art a few weeks ago), as well as things that we’ve probably talked about, but that could stand to be reinforced, such as:
- Setting
- Characters
- Topic and main idea
- Theme
- Cause and effect
- Folk tales
- Real and make believe
The pages are colorful and kid-friendly and, for the most part, the kids enjoy doing them. I’d hazard to guess that Language Smarts would nicely complement nearly any language arts program, while providing some extra practice or even introducing new skills and providing a jumping off point for further discuss.
Language Smarts is part of The Critical Thinking Co.’s core curriculum and is available for $39. The answer key can be downloaded from their website (I had to throw in that tidbit of information since I was working the first few sheets in my head to see how they worked and wasn’t 100% sure I had one of the answers right. I was telling myself how crazy it was to have a book like this with no answer key when I realized — duh! — the answer key is available on line. How’s that for an honest confession?).
Be sure to visit The Critical Thinking Co.’s website to look at their extensive selection of award-winning curriculum designed to get your kids thinking!
I received this product free for the purpose of reviewing it. I received no other compensation for this review. The opinions expressed in this review are my personal, honest opinions. Your experience may vary.
Kris Bales is a newly-retired homeschool mom and the quirky, Christ-following, painfully honest founder (and former owner) of Weird, Unsocialized Homeschoolers. She has a pretty serious addiction to sweet tea and Words with Friends. Kris and her husband of over 30 years are parents to three amazing homeschool grads. They share their home with three dogs, two cats, a ball python, a bearded dragon, and seven birds.