Welcome to our Play To Learn feature where we’ll be looking at games to help your children work on their logical thinking and reasoning skills. There are tons of ways to do this, but here are just a few ideas to get you started!
Logic Links:
Have you tried Logic Links Puzzles yet? I promise they aren’t paying me for an endorsement, we just love this game! Its great for building logical reasoning skills and I add them to our workboxes for fun!
Each card contains a puzzle that tells which disks they'll need along with clues as to how to place the colored disks. I mostly use it for 2nd grade right now since my Kindergartner can’t read the cards quite yet. I have given them to him though, just made sure there was a “Work with Mom” sticker on that box!
Dollar Puzzles from Michael’s:
I found these inexpensive shape puzzles and they were a great addition to our workboxes! They are harder than they look and turned out to be a great problem solving game!
Creative Color Cube Activity Cards
These cards are great for logical thinking skills, the set comes with 32 activity cards that begin with easier tasks of making shapes and patterns and progress to building shape towers (some with hidden cubes) and even simple computations.
Tangram Puzzles:
Tangrams are puzzles consisting of seven simple geometric shapes that can be rearranged into innumerable figures. The puzzle has simple rules: recreate the target figure using all seven pieces without any overlap. Click here to read about the theory behind Tangrams and a fun online game example!
I found these Tangram cards and blocks at Lakeshore Learning they also have the blocks by Learning Resources. This set includes cards with each shape outlined for beginners and then cards without the shape outlines for more of a challenge!
Pattern Blocks:
Pattern Blocks are similar to the Tangrams, but include more pieces in each puzzle allowing you to make really great patterns and pictures. I found these free Pattern Block Printable at Prekinders. I found my cards and Wooden Pattern Blocks Here!
BLOKUS!
I featured this on my Fine Motor Skills Pt. 2 post, but it’s also great for Logical Thinking too! Rules are simple, each player gets a color. The goal is to get as many of your pieces on the board by the end and they can only touch on their corners. For single players, it’s still a challenge to get all the pieces on the board!
Jenga
Jenga is such a fun game, it takes skill to build the tower and even more to remove the pieces without it falling down! Great for logical thinking!
Mystery Pattern Blocks:
This is a fun game from Lakeshore Learning, it comes with pattern cards and a mystery box. The wooden pattern pieces go in the box and you have to stick your hand in and “FEEL” to find the right piece to complete the pattern.
Foam Shapes Puzzles:
I got this fun idea from Walking by the Way. I grabbed a tub of foam shapes from Michael’s (or any hobby store) and then made a grid on construction paper. I glued 2 different shapes in the top row of the grid, then gave my daughter the appropriate shapes she needed to replicate my design.
BEADS & PATTERN CARDS
I found this set at a local used curriculum sale and am so happy I did! It came with a bunch of pattern cards, beads and shoelaces. You just pull out a card a shoestring and a hand full of beads and copy the pattern they’ve done on the card.
Those are just some of many ideas to help boost Logical thinking skills! If you have more ideas to share, or would like to be included in future “Play To Learn” posts, please email me at homeschoolerconfessions {at} gmail {dot} com, we’d love to hear from you!
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