Course Description

The Building Thinking Skills® series is the bestselling thinking skills program in the world! The engaging, highly-effective activities are developmentally sequenced. Each skill (for example, classifying) is presented first in the semi-concrete figural-spatial form and then in the abstract verbal form. Students also learn important academic vocabulary, concepts, and skills as they analyze relationships between objects, between words, and between objects and words by:
     - Observing, recognizing, and describing characteristics
     - Distinguishing similarities and differences
     - Identifying and completing sequences, classifications, and analogies

These processes help students develop superior thinking and communication skills that lead to deeper content learning in all subjects.

LEVEL 1
Figural-Spatial Skills

Describing shapes
Figures: compare / describe /copy / enlarge / divide
Diagrams: overlapping classes / Venn / branching / cycle
Mental pattern folding / symmetry
Directionality / Position in space
Mental rotation / reflection / tumbling / stacking / folding of 2-D objects
Congruence / area / volume
Analogies: size / color / orientation / detail
Visual motor integration and memory
Use of graphic organizers
  
Verbal Skills

Spelling / Vocabulary / Writing:  describing things and words
Following and writing 1-, 2-, and 3-step directions
Antonyms / synonyms
Analogies: kind of / part of / used to / association / action
Deductive / Inductive reasoning
Parts of a whole
Map reading
Writing directions
Logic: if-then / yes-no / true-false
Orientation: person / place / time
Auditory memory
Language acquisition