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10 kindergarten critical thinking activities to inspire their inner sherlock holmes.

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Think about how conveniently awesome it would be to have a little one who could not only wow with his cute dimples and milk splashing abilities, but who could also solve mysteries for you and your family.

Mysteries such as, Who fed the dog the casserole your child didn’t want to eat? Who spilled the Lego all over the kitchen (and didn’t clean it up)? Who flushed mama’s favorite gold bracelet down the toilet?

It might seem like a difficult task to even imagine where to begin, when you decide that it’s time to start teaching critical thinking skills to your youngster.

Trust me, half the time, as a grown up, my own critical thinking skills vary between shoddy and spot on (depending on my amount of hyper caffeine intake for the day).

But rest assured, dear parents, that you can most definitely teach your children critical thought processes in a way that will sharpen her logic to a fine tooth and comb, so that she will, indeed, be a young sleuth-minded Sherlock Holmes.

Sit back, enjoy your favorite latte and do the following analytical thinking exercises with your kiddo, and half your job is already complete – simple as that:

1. Begin with the facts

When teaching a young child how to go from cereal spilling to the beginning steps of developing logic, it’s easiest for you to start where you are right now.

Meaning, let’s say you have just served your child dinner of mashed potatoes, cheesy broccoli, and chicken, and she refuses to eat, because the potatoes aren’t from McDonalds. Ask her, “how do you know these aren’t from McDonald’s?”

Listen to her explanation, and help her clarify the answer.

Two things can arise, she may just become bamboozled enough to give in and eat the potatoes, or she’ll hone in on her logic and will explain in perfect English why the potatoes aren’t, indeed, McDonalds.

2. Build a wildlife park

Get out your child’s themed toys (such as animal figurines), as well as a large piece of paper, and some coloring tools.

Explain to your youngster that you want him to design a zoo, but that he has to sort all of the animals into appropriate categories, so that it’s easier to keep them happy and fed.

Allow him some time to sort the animals and for some added fun, have him color and create the animal’s homes on the paper.

Not only do you have your little one fully-engaged, but now you also have another idea to add to your “kindergarten critical thinking activities” bank for a rainy day.

3. Put on your thinking caps

Get out your kiddo’s favorite dress-up hats, some tape, pieces of paper, and a pen. Now, all you need to do is write a word (such as crocodile, apple, monkey, etc.) on the paper.

Tape the paper to your child’s hat, and describe what is on the piece of paper, without using its name.

Pro Tip: Help Your Child Become Better at Critical Thinking

Enroll your child for the Atlas Mission and let your child play with this award-winning educational program. Your child will become better at critical thinking without even realizing it!

4. Have fun with a “What am I?” riddle

When it comes to riddles, kids seem to love them. Why not use this natural passion for some critical thinking practice?

All you need to do, is come up with a person, place, or thing, and describe it to your little one.

For example, “I am about five feet tall, have dark circles under my eyes, and haven’t slept properly in two months.” “Who am I?”

Your child can easily deduce this one.

5. Offer choice in situations

Often, tired parents will give into children’s whims (such as wearing a bumble bee costume for a year straight), in order to avoid tiring arguments, and fairly so.

However, consider having your little one use logic to see if his choice will change. Perhaps your kiddo wants to wear the bumble bee costume – again.

Offer him the Batman (more discreet) as an option. Now, and here’s the important part: have your child explain what will happen if he wears each costume.

“If I’m a bee, people might be scared of me,” but “If I’m Batman, I’ll be a superhero.” Done and done; logic wins again.

6. Predict an ending

Simple as pie. When you’re reading your child a story, and you find that you are near the end, take a moment to stop, and ask your youngster how she thinks it will end.

Will Scar (from The Lion King) win? Listen to her answer. Ask her to explain her choice, and have fun with the discussion – it can be silly and fun, but should offer some form of logic to keep the critical thinking juices flowing.

7. Like or dislike

Along the same lines of “predict an ending,” read a story with your child, and as you read it together, ask him questions. “Do you like Aladdin’s choice to steal the apple?” “Why or Why not?”

You can even get a little deeper into the critical thinking and logic path: “Aladdin was very hungry and didn’t have any money, so do you think it’s OK to take the apple, since he had no food?”

8. Critically sort a dinner menu

A simple way to not only get your child on board with the dinner menu, but to use logic and critical thinking that would make Sherlock Holmes proud, is to have her plan the dinner menu.

Simply give your child a list of about twenty food options (ranging from vegetables, pasta, fruit, ice-cream, and anything else you want).

Explain that you want the meal to be as healthy as possible, and have your child choose only four items from the list. To top it off, have your little Holmes explain why she made certain food choices over others.

9. Keep it simple with X and O’s

Play x’s and o’s with your child, but keep it fun by using a white board, colourful pens, or even candy. Simply set out to win. Child versus parent, and be merciless in your gaming skills.

See if your young one can adapt and keep up. If not, well, good luck next time youngster.

10. Engage with true or false

This is as effortless as can be. All you need to do is to give your youngster two sticky notes: one that says, “true,” and one that reads, “false.”

Make a statement, such as, “It is good to swim outdoors while it’s raining and thundering”. Your child will critically consider if the statement is, in fact, true or not, and place the corresponding sticky note down.

Now your kiddo will explain the thought process behind the chosen sticky note. Enjoy.

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Tess Bercan creates educational content for the Atlas Mission . She is a certified elementary teacher and has taught for over ten years.

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New Designs for School Teaching Kindergarteners Critical Thinking Skills: Lessons from Two Rivers Deeper Learning Cohort

Jeff Heyck-Williams with Chelsea Rivas and Liz Rosenberg Two Rivers Deeper Learning Cohort in Washington, D.C.

We’ve all had the experience of truly purposeful, authentic learning and know how valuable it is. Educators are taking the best of what we know about learning, student support, effective instruction, and interpersonal skill-building to completely reimagine schools so that students experience that kind of purposeful learning all day, every day.

The stories of two kindergarten teachers illustrate the power of providing an opportunity for 5 and 6 year-olds to think critically.

I’ve argued elsewhere that yes, we can define, teach, and assess critical thinking skills , but I know what you are probably thinking. These skills are all good for middle and high school students and maybe upper elementary kids, but kindergarteners? However, I was in a kindergarten class recently where five and six year-olds were making evidenced-based claims and critiquing the arguments of each other. Kindergarteners were thinking critically!

Two Rivers Public Charter School in Washington, D.C., is wrapping up our second Deeper Learning Cohort. Twenty-four educators from schools across the city participated to learn how to deepen their students’ thinking through the use of thinking routines with aligned rubrics and performance assessments.

This group of dedicated teachers from prekindergarten through 8th grade gathered at convenings over the course of this past school year to explore what it means to help students think more deeply about what they are learning. Specifically, we learned about three thinking routines that provide a structure for helping students think critically and problem-solve. We dived into understanding how the language of rubrics can be used to define these constructs but have limitations when applied across multiple contexts. We developed understanding of performance task design and how that translates into the experiences we provide for students everyday. Finally, we learned how analyzing student thinking as exhibited in student work can be leveraged to deepen our students’ critical thinking and problem-solving skills .

The power of this work has been highlighted for all of us as we saw kindergarten students demonstrate an ability to formulate reasoned arguments with specific support. The stories of two kindergarten teachers illustrate the power of providing both an opportunity for five and six year-olds to think critically and the structure to support that thinking.

Teaching Kindergarteners to Be Effective Reasoners

Chelsea Rivas, Kindergarten Teacher at Two Rivers Public Charter School

When Two Rivers invited educators to participate in a Deeper Learning Cohort last summer I jumped on the opportunity. I began working at Two Rivers in the fall of 2018 and had a lot to learn my first year about the “Two Rivers Way,” so I didn’t feel like I was able to dive into thinking routines in a way I wanted. This cohort allowed me to do just that!

We began our journey by learning about and experiencing the thinking routines and then choosing one to focus on all year with our class. As a kindergarten teacher, I decided I wanted my students to grow into people who reason effectively, so I chose to focus on the “Claim-Support-Question” routine.

I introduced the effective reasoning thinking routine of Claim-Support-Question with a fun think-aloud. I showed a portion of a picture on our board and had students make “claims,” or guesses, as to what the whole picture might be. I then had them support their claim with evidence from the picture and their own personal experience. Last, I showed my students how we can challenge or question our claim by saying what someone else might think.

My students loved this challenge so much that we made it part of our morning routine two to three times a week. Once students became comfortable using this routine in the context of the mystery picture of the day, I extended the use of this routine to reading literature. I modeled making claims and using evidence from the text to support my claim, as well as stating how someone could disagree with my claim. I had students begin making claims, using valid support, and challenging their claim in guided reading.

My students have moved from just stating their opinion, or claim, to always having valid support for their opinions. The word “because” is ingrained in their five and six-year old vocabulary. It’s become easier for many to empathize with other people’s opinions because they have gotten into the routine of challenging their own thinking. However, this is probably the toughest part of the effective reasoning thinking routine and many of my students are still working to get better at the question aspect of the Claim-Support-Question routine.

My students are critical thinkers, problem solvers, and able to consistently think outside the box. Parents have told me how impressed they are that their children are able to think this deeply about a topic. My biggest take-away from this experience has been that my kindergarteners can do a lot more than what people expect!

Thinking Routines in Kindergarten

Liz Rosenberg, Kindergarten Teacher at Creative Minds International Public Charter School

As I was looking for professional development opportunities over the summer in 2019, I happened to come across an online post for the Deeper Learning Cohort through Two Rivers. I had heard of thinking routines in the past but never really had the structure to implement them in my classroom. After spending only a few days together in July with this cohort of passionate, invested, skilled group of D.C. teachers, I felt inspired and empowered to push my students’ thinking before they even arrived in my classroom in August.

It is so easy as a teacher to get bogged down by the pressures of Common Core—we want our students to read, write, and solve math problems so they can be successful and score well on PARCC. While those content areas are of course very important, teaching for me has always been deeper than that. I want my students to grow up to be contributing members of society, who can think critically about the world and express their ideas and beliefs with conviction and confidence. To be successful in this world, they need to be able to communicate their thinking to others, making it visible to their audience, whether that audience is their classmates in a college course or their spouse later in their adult life. I want my students to understand the world from a global perspective, which includes truly comprehending that others may see the world differently than them and how that fact makes the world better, richer, and more diverse. So often we see adults who are not able to separate their thinking from their own lived experiences. I want more for my students and fight for that every day.

I have extremely high expectations of myself and those in my life—and that includes my students. I was surprised to learn as I progressed through this cohort of deeper learning that my students are capable of even more than I thought, that I can raise my expectations of them even higher! My students can make statements, support their claim with evidence, and think of a counterclaim. They can look at a set of choices, list criteria for a decision, and see if their choices meet the criteria. Many years ago, when I asked my students, “How do you know?” they would respond with answers like, “I thought it in my brain” or “my mom told me.” No longer is that acceptable in my classroom because I provided my students with the scaffolding so they can now make their thinking visible without as much support. They can problem solve by thinking about what they already know, what they want to know, and what ideas they should think about to drive their learning. And my five year-olds can communicate in meaningful ways through writing and pictures. They know their voices matter and what they have to say matters.

This is just the beginning. The values and lessons my students are learning are setting the foundation for them to be lifelong learners who question, think critically, back up their thinking with evidence, and be thoughtful and effective problem solvers. This is the world I want to live in and, together with my students, we are creating it.

Photo at top courtesy of Two Rivers Public Charter School.

Jeff Heyck-Williams with Chelsea Rivas and Liz Rosenberg

Two rivers deeper learning cohort.

Jeff Heyck-WIlliams is director of curriculum and instruction at Two Rivers Public Charter School.

Chelsea Rivas is a kindergarten teacher at Two Rivers Public Charter School.

Liz Rosenberg is a kindergarten teacher at Creative Minds International Public Charter School.

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12 Critical Thinking Activities for Kids

By: Author Tanja McIlroy

Posted on Last updated: 9 April 2024

Categories Early Literacy

Critical thinking is a valuable skill and one that young children should be actively taught. The best way to teach this to preschoolers and kindergarteners is through play activities, discussions and stories.

In this article, I’ll share some basic critical thinking activities for kids.

What is Critical Thinking?

Critical thinking is one of the higher-order thinking skills and is the process of analyzing information using logic, reasoning and creativity, in order to understand things and draw conclusions. [ source ]

Critical Thinking Activities for Preschoolers and Kindergarteners

The preschool years are the time to stimulate your children with fun games and activities that will stretch their imaginations and their ability to think critically.

These 12 critical thinking games for kids are screen-free, traditional games that can be played with your preschooler anywhere, and with no prep.

The traditional game of I Spy can be played in many ways e.g. spying objects based on initial sounds ( teaching letters ) or colours ( colour recognition ).

To test your child’s thinking, play this game by using descriptive clues that don’t involve sounds or colours.

• I spy with my little eye something that’s soft, round and can be thrown.
• I spy with my little eye something that grows, is smooth and is found on trees.

2. Build a Story

This game is about creative thinking and language development.

Start by making up an introduction to a story:

Once upon a time, there was a little grey cat.

Your child then adds a sentence to the story, thus changing the direction of the story:

The little grey cat was lost in the woods.

Then you add a sentence and so the story continues:

Suddenly, he heard a whisper behind him and he froze.

This game usually ends in fits of laughter and a ridiculous story but uses a lot of brainpower and imagination.

3. Rhyming Game

Play this rhyming game by challenging your child to think of words that rhyme with an easy word such as cat or tap. This game is great for developing auditory perception .

Say a sentence such as “ I have a …” or “ I see a …” and add in a simple word such as cat . Your child then responds with the same sentence using an appropriate rhyming word and you continue the game until you run out of words together.

Then choose a new word.

You: I see a cat .

Child: I see a rat .

You: I see a mat .

Child: I see a hat .

4. How Many Can You Think of?

This game challenges children to think of words that fit into a theme or category.

Choose a category, such as colours , and put a timer on for one minute. Ask your child to name as many words as they can that fit into the category, without repeating any.

Write down the words as they are said and count the total at the end. Your child will be motivated to beat the total in the next round.

Try these fun category games too.

5. Matchstick Buildings

Build 3D structures out of matchsticks and a variety of materials that can be used to join the edges – e.g. Prestik, Blu Tack, jelly sweets, little marshmallows, tape, playdough , glue, etc.

This will teach some technology skills and encourage planning, thinking and problem-solving as your child tries to figure out how to join parts together and make things stand, balance or hold in a particular position.

6. Cloud Stories

Every child will enjoy this activity. Go outside on a nice cloudy day, lie next to each other on the grass and look for pictures in the clouds.

Once you have found a few, encourage your child to tell a story by tying all the pictures together.

7. Lego Theme

You could ask your child to build a farm theme, complete with animals and farmhouses, and then ask them to build a space station. You will be surprised by how creative children can be when challenged to think of ways to create.

8. Tangrams

Ask your child to use the shapes to create a particular image, e.g. a specific animal, and give no direction. Your child must think about how to build various parts of a body by joining shapes together.

9.  Tic-Tac-Toe

This game, also known as noughts and crosses is an excellent thinking skills game and also develops planning skills.

Draw a simple table like the one above on paper or a chalkboard. Take turns to add a nought or a cross to the table and see who can make a row of three first.

Your child will probably catch on in no time and start thinking carefully before placing their symbol.

This game can also be played with coloured counters or different objects.

10. What is it?

Hold an object or toy behind your back. Your child must guess what it is by asking questions to extract clues.

Have your child hide an item first so you can model the kinds of questions allowed. Then swap and let your child formulate questions. With time, your child will learn how to ask targeted questions that narrow down the options.

• Is it soft or hard?
• Can I eat it?
• Can it fit in my hand?
• Does it make a sound?

11. Hide and Seek

In this game of Hide and Seek an object is hidden instead of a person.

This is a variation of the game above and involves giving directions or clues for where the object is hidden.

Hide the object then provide clues such as:

• It is far from here.
• It is outside the house.
• There is water near it.
• It is in the shade.

These clues can be easy or challenging, depending on your child’s age and ability to think.

12. What Really Happened?

This game works on imagination, creativity and thinking skills. Choose a story your child enjoys reading and knows well but have him/her make up an alternative ending to the story.

For example, Little Red Riding Hood goes into the woods with her basket but gets lost on the way and cannot find her grandmother’s house. What happens next?

Encourage your child to think of solutions to problems encountered along the way and ideas for how the characters can deal with certain situations.

I hope you’ve enjoyed these ideas!

If you’d like to receive a FREE set of fun printables, games and rhymes for preschoolers, as well as regular emails with useful tips and play-based activity ideas, join either the Newsletter for Parents or the Newsletter for Preschool Teachers below.

For a simple way to develop higher-order thinking skills, ask your children these thinking questions during story time .

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Sunday 15th of October 2023

I am a resource teacher and have been looking for these types of activities to use for my classes. I am excited to see how my students will respond...

Thank you so much for sharing...

Tanja Mcilroy

Monday 16th of October 2023

You're welcome, Lyn!

Tuesday 8th of August 2023

What a fantastic article on critical thinking activities for kids! As a parent, I'm always on the lookout for engaging ways to nurture my child's cognitive development. These 12 activities for preschoolers and kindergarteners truly resonate with me. The way you've explained each game, from I Spy to Cloud Stories, makes it easy to understand how they stimulate creative thinking and problem-solving skills.

Moreover, I found your insights on using higher-order thinking skills during storytime incredibly valuable. Encouraging kids to predict, infer, and analyze while reading is such a powerful way to enhance their cognitive abilities.

As I was reading your article, I couldn't help but think about another great resource that complements your ideas perfectly. It's an article called "Empower Your Child's Learning with Playful Critical Thinking Activities," and you can find it here: link. This article dives deeper into playful activities that foster critical thinking in kids and aligns perfectly with your approach.

Thank you for sharing your expertise and insights – your work is greatly appreciated by parents like me who are passionate about our children's development! 🌟

Wednesday 9th of August 2023

Thanks for your kind comment, Marina!

Connie Strand

Saturday 22nd of June 2019

Tanja , I have enjoyed all the articles you have written! The background information is so very important. Why we teach certain concepts along with the activities ,I think, has been invaluable! I hope other parents, educators and people involved with little ones, appreciate the extensive job you have done. Sincerely, Connie

Sunday 23rd of June 2019

Hi Connie, thank you so much for your kind words. I love writing about how young minds learn and it's wonderful when parents and teachers get involved and really understand the value of play for their children. Enjoy the journey! Tanja

Wednesday 20th of February 2019

I m very much satisfied with your ansure do u take sessions I need to meet u personaly so u can help me more about my daughter eira thank you very much

Hi Minaz, thank you for your comment. You are welcome to email me your queries at [email protected]

Critical Thinking Activities for Kindergarten

Why is critical thinking important .

Critical thinking is an ability that would effect children in their entire life. According to MSU : “Critical thinking helps us to make good decisions, understand the consequences of our actions and solve problems.”  Simply put, this skills is among one of the most important skills in our life. Children starts really developing their critical thinking skills during kindergarten. Abilities such as asking question, connecting ideas, make rational decisions, and give reasons to justify their decisions. These process transforms a child from a passive listener to an active learner and it plays main role in the development and enhancement of human brain. This is why we believe critical thinking activities for kindergartener can aid them to become successful in the future.

In order to improve kids critical thinking skills, kids should become dynamic students instead of inactive receiver of information. Thoroughly addressing their thoughts and presumptions is more important than getting the answer right at a young age.

This is why we believe it would be beneficial to enroll your kid in Classover enrichment program. Children may develop a habit of learning if they started in a fun environment where they can make friends while having fun at the same time. With over 200 state-certified instructors teaching 20 courses covering a diverse array of topics and more to come, Classover provides one of the best online class experience for kids.  For an affordable price to participate into the class, your kids can develop their critical thinking ability before they start school. Try a Free trial class now and see immediate improvement.

Sign up HERE for 2 FREE trial lessons and see if your kid enjoy it.

Claim 2 Free Classes Now

List of critical thinking activities for kindergarten, playing sorting games .

In case of logical reasoning, sorting and classification skills have own significance. As these helps the child to observe the similarities and differences among different groups, and body structures. Ask your children to sort various objects, animals, and other stuff in terms of color, size, shape, and geometry. Grouping of animals based on their eating habits, habitats, reproduction mechanism enhances their learning. Such fun games help in developing problem solving skills, planning skills, and pattern recognition.

A frontal cortex of a child enables during free play and it is responsible for the problem-solving skills. During play time, the brain a child makes the neurotransmitter connections which helps in growth and stimulating of critical thinking.

Solve Puzzles & Brainteasers

Another activity that is best for the problem-solving ability is solving puzzles and brainteasers together. This activity helps the kid to learn from others and plan a strategy of own. Engage your kids in this activity as it is good tool for building critical thinking skill. Solving puzzles by own can be frustrating for the kids so it is better that you join them in such fun and learning activities.

Read Books or Movie

Children love to watch their favorite shows and movies and read their favorite stories or books. You can convert their favorite activity into a learning process by asking the question mentioned-below, at the end of any show or a book.

• What you liked about this?
• What you disliked about this?
• Is there a moral of the story?
• Will this story/lesson helped you in daily life?
• Did the journey of the characters involved in the story make sense?
• Was the ending satisfying?

This analytical exercise helps them to think critically about what they are consuming.  You as a parent can also share your thinking and approach about that particular story. By this, they will gain the insights from you and it will help the kids to think and observe the things through different perspective.

Play Detective

Another critical thinking activity for the kids can be a simple treasure hunt designed to search for any hidden object. This thrilling and engaging activity is best for practicing the critical thinking of your child. You can also design some crime cases in which your child has to read carefully to determine the important evidence and differ between opinion and fact. Through this, they will be able to synthesize the data from various sources for examining which suspect is guilty and which is innocent. It will help to build observation skills, reading comprehension, and deductive thinking skills in your kid.

Fact & Opinion

Write different statements on the board or a paper that are either an opinion or a fact. Divide the kids in groups and ask them to mark a statement with F if it is a fact and explain your answer. In case of opinion, mark it with O and explain why it can’t be proven. Also ask them the following questions to make the things easy for them.

• Is this statement is backed by verified data or assumption?
• Does the statement have a bias?
• Are facts reliable?
• Is there any misleading information?

This exercise is about difference between opinion and fact.

Get Creative with Blocks

The logical skills can be developed through blocks. This activity is best for the social and emotional growth. Children learn to take different turns, building new friendships, enhancing attention span, helping other, and forming self-esteem with blocks activity. This activity gives children a sense to their imagination. When you encourage your kids to repurpose old blocks into advance games, then their neurons fire up in the brain.

Inspire Thinking

Encourage them to ask as many questions as possible about any event or a story. Then help them to arrive at the answer by own rather than providing the answer. Ask them to think of answer no matter how stupid they respond.  But once they are able to provide the explanation then ask them to give the reasons for their explanation.  In this they, they will find own flaws and fin tune their opinion. Such process will help them into better critical thinking.

Matchstick Buildings

Another activity is to build the structures using matchsticks. Provide them various materials such as tape, playdough, glue and marshmallows to join the edges of structure they make. Such activities are good for learning planning and problem solving skills and open the mind for various options. The con for this critical thinking activities for kindergartener is that it requires lots of material and might leave some mess.

The Circle of Possibility

This critical thinking exercise helps in understanding own self and the world that is present around us.  It also addresses various issues and challenges and encourages us to visualize the solutions for such issues.  All you have to do is that discuss a particular issue with your kid and ask how it affects you, your family, your community, your country, and the world.  Through this, they will form meaningful lifelong learning skills such as creative thinking, self- awareness, world view, and many others.

Who is my Hero?

Ask your kid what comes to their mind while listening a word “hero”? Who comes into their mind by listening to this word? Why they think is hero important in one’s life? How you become a hero? Listen to them carefully and examine their thought process and correct them if they are on the wrong track.

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5 Critical Thinking Activities That Get Students Up and Moving

More movement means better learning.

It’s easy to resort to having kids be seated during most of the school day. But learning can (and should) be an active process. Incorporating movement into your instruction has incredible benefits—from deepening student understanding to improving concentration to enhancing performance. Check out these critical thinking activities, adapted from Critical Thinking in the Classroom , a book with over 100 practical tools and strategies for teaching critical thinking in K-12 classrooms.

Four Corners

In this activity, students move to a corner of the classroom based on their responses to a question with four answer choices. Once they’ve moved, they can break into smaller groups to explain their choices. Call on students to share to the entire group. If students are persuaded to a different answer, they can switch corners and further discuss. 

Question ideas:

• Which president was most influential: George Washington, Thomas Jefferson, John Adams, or Abraham Lincoln?
• Is Holden Caulfield a hero: Strongly Agree, Agree, Disagree, or Strongly Disagree?

Gallery Walk

This strategy encourages students to move around the classroom in groups to respond to questions, documents, images, or situations posted on chart paper. Each group gets a different colored marker to record their responses and a set amount of time at each station. When groups move, they can add their own ideas and/or respond to what prior groups have written.

Gallery ideas:

• Political cartoons

Stations are a great way to chunk instruction and present information to the class without a “sit and get.” Group desks around the room or create centers, each with a different concept and task. There should be enough stations for three to five students to work for a set time before rotating.

Station ideas:

• Types of rocks
• Story elements
• Literary genres

Silent Sticky-Note Storm

In this brainstorming activity, students gather in groups of three to five. Each group has a piece of chart paper with a question at the top and a stack of sticky notes. Working in silence, students record as many ideas or answers as possible, one answer per sticky note. When time is up, they post the sticky notes on the paper and then silently categorize them.

• How can you exercise your First Amendment rights?
• What are all the ways you can divide a square into eighths?

Mingle, Pair, Share

Take your Think, Pair, Share to the next level. Instead of having students turn and talk, invite them to stand and interact. Play music while they’re moving around the classroom. When the music stops, each student finds a partner. Pose a question and invite students to silently think about their answer. Then, partners take turns sharing their thoughts.

• How do organisms modify their environments?
• What is the theme of Romeo and Juliet ?

Looking for more critical thinking activities and ideas?

Critical Thinking in the Classroom is a practitioner’s guide that shares the why and the how for building critical thinking skills in K-12 classrooms. It includes over 100 practical tools and strategies that you can try in your classroom tomorrow!

Get Your Copy of Critical Thinking in the Classroom

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Parent Resources for Learning > Critical Thinking > Critical Thinking Activities for Kids: 5 Quick & Fun Challenges

Critical Thinking Activities for Kids: 5 Quick & Fun Challenges

by Dr. Jody Sherman LeVos | Aug 11, 2023 | Critical Thinking

Here’s a riddle: I’m something preschoolers, kindergarteners, and elementary students can do. I help kids develop self-control, working memory, flexible thinking, and other essential skills. I’m also really, really fun and don’t take long. What am I?

The answer is critical thinking activities for kids! You probably guessed that based on the title of this page. But kids aren’t born with that ability (try reading the riddle to a 4-year-old and see what happens!). They have to practice to develop it.

Luckily, there are a lot of fun ways to help them, and they don’t take long. Thinking about trying a few critical thinking activities with your kids? We’re here to help.

The Short Cut

• Critical thinking is one of the 5 C’s that help kids thrive in school and life (an essential part of the Begin Approach to learning)
• Strong critical thinking abilities have been linked to better grades, higher workplace performance, and less credit card debt
• Good critical thinking activities often involve following rules, breaking tasks into sequences, asking questions, and understanding multiple perspectives
• Games are a GREAT way to develop critical thinking with kids!

Why Is Critical Thinking Important?

Critical thinking is the ability to make decisions and analyze information. For kids, it includes:

• Recalling short sequences of information and simple instructions
• Ignoring distractions to focus on a task
• Thinking computationally and coding
• Grasping the differences between sources of information
• Reasoning using logic
• Making connections between things

Kids need critical thinking because it helps them understand the world and make good choices, especially as they get older.

At age 2, they can get by following simple rules like “sit in your chair at the dinner table.” But by age 5 or 6, they’ll be solving problems, following complex rules in kindergarten and elementary school, and making decisions based on varying and sometimes conflicting information. (“My friend told me it’s OK to use these scissors. My teacher told us we should always ask her first unless she gives them to us. At home I can use scissors without asking because I’m always careful with them. I’m at school. What do I do?”)

Critical thinking only becomes more important from there. It’s one of the most highly valued skills in the workplace, and people with strong critical thinking skills tend to experience fewer negative life events in adulthood.

In short, it matters a lot!

5 Quick, Easy Critical Thinking Activities for Kids

Teaching critical thinking to kids is a blast, and it doesn’t take long. Here are five of our favorite activities to help kids get better at it.

1. Simon Says

This classic childhood game is great for developing critical thinking for kids from preschool through elementary school. We love it because you can break it out almost anywhere, anytime—all you need is a little space!

What You Need

• Enough space for kids to move around and follow your directions
• Explain to the kids that you’ll be giving them directions by saying, “Simon says…” and that the goal of the game is to remember the directions, do them in the right order, and not do them if you don’t say “Simon says…” first
• Give the kids a simple direction, like “Simon says, ‘Stick out your tongue’”
• As the game progresses, add longer and more complicated strings of directions, like “Simon says, ‘Stick out your tongue, then stand on one foot, then clap your hands one time’”
• Help the kids work on paying attention by mixing in some directions without “Simon Says,” like “Jump up and down!” and seeing if they remember the rules!

This game uses working memory (to remember the instructions) and self-control (not to jump if you didn’t say “Simon Says!”), among other skills.

2. Robot Commander

If you have a little more time to prepare, you can try this more imaginative version of Simon Says from codeSpark , our award-winning app that develops critical thinking for kids ages 5–9 through fun, coding-based games. Your kids will have a blast while learning some of the building blocks of computational thinking!

• This printable
• Space for kids to move around and follow commands
• 3 or more players
• Print out the Robot Commander printable
• Designate one player as the Commander and the others as Robots
• Show the Commander and Robots the actions on the printable and explain what they mean
• Have the Commander draw out a short sequence of actions, then the Robots act them out
• Add new commands using the blank shapes on the printable
• Have the commander “program” longer and longer sequences, then switch roles so everyone gets a chance to try!

For even more fun, have the “robots” dress up in costumes!

3. Grid Game

The grid game has a simple goal: Follow instructions to get through a grid and reach a goal. It gives kids a chance to work on sequencing (breaking a task into a sequence of shorter actions, then following it), working memory, ignoring the impulse to rush straight for the goal, and following rules—all while moving their bodies and having fun! 

• Large space on the floor, sidewalk, or ground
• Masking tape, chalk, or string to make a grid
• Item to place in the grid as a goal
• Use the tape, chalk, or string to create a 4×4, 5×5, or 6×6 grid in your play space—the larger the grid, the more difficult the game becomes
• Place the goal item somewhere in the grid
• Have your child stand in the lower-left grid space, then follow your directions to reach the goal item. To cross a small grid, your instructions might sound like this: “Take one step forward. Take two steps to your right. Take one step forward.”
• When they reach the goal, celebrate!

To stretch the game out even more, switch roles and ask your kid to come up with a set of directions for you to follow! It may not seem like it, but this kind of sequencing is a basic computational thinking skill that will one day help them learn to code!

4. Mail Delivery

Critical thinking isn’t just about following directions—it can also be imaginative and fun! This activity develops working memory while stretching kids’ Creativity (another of the 5 C’s) through pretend play.

• Handwritten letters or notes to make pretend mail (you can use ones you have on hand, write some out, or just use blank paper)
• 5–10 toy “friends” (dolls, action figures, stuffed animals, etc.)
• Bag, basket, or toy vehicle for putting letters in (optional)
• Ask your child to gather their “friends” and place them around the room in different “homes”
• Assign each of the letters to a “friend”
• Have your child deliver the “mail” (using the bag, basket, or toy vehicle if you have one)

More Ways to Play

This activity is fun all on its own (we’ve seen some kids play it for hours), but there are lots of ways to stretch it to include more critical thinking abilities and Core Skills (another of the 5 C’s) like counting, reading, and writing. You can try:

• Numbering the “friends” and delivering their mail in numerical order
• Delivering the mail in order from largest “friend” to smallest
• Asking older kids to draw a map of the pretend neighborhood with addresses and street names, then put each letter in an envelope, address it, and deliver it to the right house
• Placing the “friends” all over the house and timing how long deliveries take, then experimenting to see what the fastest route is!

5. Make a Story Box

This is another great activity for blending Creativity (storytelling), Critical Thinking (sequencing and working memory), and Core Skills (story structure). It can be so satisfying to watch a kid’s imagination take flight!

• A box, bowl, or basket
• 5–6 child-safe toys or household items
• Place 5–6 items in the box
• Invite your child to make up a story using all of the items in the box

Tip: Kids ages 5 and under can make up the story as they go (“Umm…then the monkey jumps on the dump truck and drives it!”), but starting at age 6 you can challenge them to plan out their whole story before they start to tell it.

• Invite kids to collaborate on the story by taking turns planning what happens next
• Use familiar dolls, toys, or stuffed animals to provide characters for the story
• For a twist, let the kids pick some favorite toys, then surprise them by including things they don’t usually play with, like a bandage, toothbrush, or hat
• Ask the kids if you can have a turn—they’ll learn a lot from seeing how you construct a story!

More Critical Thinking Activities from Begin

Because critical thinking is such an essential skill set, at Begin we build it into many of our award-winning, play-based learning products. It might look like sequencing-based coding games in codeSpark , memory activities in HOMER , or 1-on-1 support through KidPass Tutors , but no matter where you find it, it’ll help your kids learn while having a blast.

To see how our products come together to give your child their best start to achieving their fullest potential, check out our Early Learner Bundle !

Jody has a Ph.D. in Developmental Science and more than a decade of experience in the children’s media and early learning space.

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Dr. Jody Sherman LeVos

Chief Learning Officer at Begin

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15+ Top Critical Thinking Activities for Preschoolers and Kindergartners

As parents, we must give our children the best possible education and skills to help them succeed in life. We need to understand the importance of critical thinking abilities in children.

Providing them with the proper education, tools, and resources is insufficient. They must also be equipped with the skills to think critically and solve problems.

What is Critical Thinking?

Critical thinking is a skill that helps children develop the ability to make informed decisions, think objectively and creatively, and develop problem-solving skills. By teaching our children to think critically, we give them the resources they need to make intelligent decisions and develop a strong foundation for their future.

Your child will be better equipped to make sound decisions and solve problems by developing critical thinking abilities.

Listed below are significant things that you should know about critical thinking-

• Critical thinking is the process of evaluating information, facts, and arguments to make a reasoned decision or judgment. 
• Critical thinking is an essential skill for kids to become successful in their lives. It is the ability to think logically, systematically, and reflectively and to make sound decisions and judgments. 
• Kids must develop this skill to create creative solutions to problems, make informed decisions, and think flexibly. 

Why is Critical Thinking important? 

The importance of critical thinking abilities for kids cannot be overstated. 

• It helps kids to analyze, reason, and make decisions based on facts, evidence, and logic. 
• It also enables them to develop innovative ideas and solve complex problems. 
• With critical thinking skills, kids can develop the capacity to recognize their own biases and assumptions and challenge their own ideas and beliefs.
• By teaching kids the importance of critical thinking and incorporating it into their day-to-day activities, we can help them become better decision-makers and problem-solvers.
• By encouraging kids to engage in more critical thinking activities, they become more self-aware and independent, which helps them to make better decisions.
• They also start to build their problem-solving and communication skills, which can be used in various areas of life.
• Finally, with critical thinking skills, kids can gain self-confidence, understand their reasoning, and develop a deeper understanding of the world around them.

Critical Thinking Activities for Preschoolers and Kindergarteners.

Some of the most common critical thinking activities include: 

• Storytime, 
• Engaging in conversations, 
• Asking creative questions, 
• Puzzles and riddles, 
• Sorting, 
• Matching and pairing, 
• Introduction to coding and robotics, 
• Exploring different scenarios. 

These activities help build essential skills such as problem-solving and strengthen the importance of critical thinking abilities for kids.

How to introduce These activities to your kids?

Introducing such activities at a young age can be critical to introduce into their daily routine as this assists with developing cognitive skills and prepares them for academic success.

It also creates an environment where children can foster and practice self-reflection and understanding and encourage independent thought. These activities can include role-playing, problem-solving, question-and-answer sessions, puzzles, story mapping, group discussions, and board games. 

• Role plays will help kids identify their actions’ cause and effect. 
• Problem-solving will allow them to think before making decisions. 
• At the same time, question and answer sessions will help to assess their understanding of concepts. 
• Picture completing and story mapping activities will help to develop their memory and imagination. 
• Lastly, group discussions will help to build their communication and collaboration skills. 

These activities build critical thinking skills in kids, motor skills, and creativity. So, including these classroom activities is essential to help develop their critical thinking abilities.

8 Activities for critical thinking development

 These activities can help them explore the world around them, develop their own opinions and make decisions on their own. Here is a list of activities that can help boost kids’ critical thinking abilities:

1. “What am I?” 

With regards to these “What am I?” riddles, kids appear to enjoy them. Why not put this inherent enthusiasm to use in some practice of critical thinking? You only need to think of a person, place, or thing and tell your child about it.

“I live in the sky, and I am hot. Don’t look directly at me. I will disappear at night. What am I?”

This is one that your child can easily deduce.

2. Prediction of the story.  

When you are reading a story to your child and notice that you are getting close to the end, stop and ask her how she thinks the story will end.

Pay attention to their response. Have fun with the conversation, and ask them to explain their choice. It can be silly and fun, but it should offer some logic to keep the critical thinking flowing.

3. X and O’s 

Play X and O’s with your child, but keep it simple using a whiteboard, colorful pens, or even candy to keep it fun. Set your goal to win. Be unforgiving in your gaming abilities and play as a child versus a parent.

Check to see if your youngster can keep up. If not, well, good luck again, little one. Teach them it’s okay to lose, but remember the intention behind it. 

4. Start with the current reality

While showing your kid how to go from cereal spilling to the starting strides is logical, it’s most straightforward for you to begin where you are now.

In other words, suppose you just served your child a dinner of chicken, cheesy broccoli, and mashed potatoes. Still, they won’t eat them because the potatoes weren’t from McDonald’s. “How do you know these aren’t from McDonald’s?” you should inquire of them.

Assist them in making the answer more explicit by listening to their explanation.

They could become so perplexed that they might give in, eat the potatoes, focus on their logic, and explain in perfect English why they are not McDonald’s.

5. True or False  

This is as simple as it gets. Give your child two sticky notes to complete the task: one with the words “true” and “false” on it.

Say something like, “A group of monkeys is called a herd.” Your child will carefully consider whether the statement is accurate before writing true or false on the right sticky note.

Your child will now describe the reasoning behind the selected sticky note. Enjoy.

6. Community Engagement Activity

This community engagement activity requires analytical skills to figure out what can be recycled in the classroom and their neighborhood. Students can practice social responsibility and socialize with people around them while making recycling bins from recyclable cardboard boxes. They can do this by creating the bins themselves.

7. What can I do?

Students will learn that despite the fact that conflicts are a normal part of life, it is essential to have problem-solving skills to resolve them through this lesson. 

You can make notes or a problem-solving wheel for kids and give them a situation. After that, ask your kid to choose what they’ll do in such a situation. Additionally, this is an excellent opportunity to improve their social awareness and interpersonal skills.

8. 25 uses of Me

Pick a regular item and set a clock for five minutes. Ask students to think of 25 ways to use the object in that time frame. Rarities like “coatrack” and “stool” are encouraged because the apparent answers will quickly run out.

What is the takeaway?  

In conclusion, critical thinking activities are vital in helping to build a strong foundation for preschoolers and kindergarteners. By providing a balanced mix of activities, kids can develop the ability to think outside the box and become better problem-solvers.

These activities can help kids develop their critical thinking abilities, which can help them later in life. As kids grow older, their critical thinking abilities can help them make better decisions, understand complex topics, and interact with others more efficiently.

Q: How can parents inspire independence in their preschoolers?

A: By giving their preschoolers age-appropriate responsibilities, allowing them to make decisions, and rewarding their efforts and successes, parents may help their preschoolers to be independent. Allowing their child to dress and wash their teeth can support their development of self-help abilities.

Q: How can parents motivate their toddlers to lead healthy, active lifestyles?

A: By giving their preschoolers chances for physical activity, such as outdoor play, dance, and sports, parents may encourage their preschoolers to be active and healthy.

I’m a former teacher (and mother of Two Childs) with a background in child development. I’m here to help you with play-based learning activities and crafts for kids ages 0 – 8. ( Cledemy.com is my Next startup on Pre to 8th Grade Printable and Worksheet Education Resources)

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20 Critical Thinking Activities for Elementary Classrooms

• Elementary Education

Introduction:

In today’s fast-paced world, instilling critical thinking skills in young minds is more important than ever. By nurturing these skills, teachers are laying the foundation for a lifetime of learning, problem-solving, and creativity. Here are 20 critical thinking activities that can be easily incorporated into any elementary classroom setting.

1. Think-Pair-Share

This simple activity encourages students to think about a question or problem individually first and then discuss with a partner before sharing their thoughts with the entire class.

2. Brainstorming Sessions

Encourage students to throw out ideas and suggest solutions within a given time frame on a specific topic without judgment or criticism.

3. Fact vs. Opinion

Prompt students to analyze the statements in this activity and decide which ones are facts and which are opinions.

4. The “Why” Chain

Ask students to continuously inquire ‘Why?’ to any given event, encouraging them to think deeply about cause-and-effect relationships.

5. Comparing Perspectives

Given two or more characters from a story, have students compare and contrast their different perspectives on a particular issue.

6. Classification Activities

Challenge students to classify objects or ideas into specific categories based on their characteristics, fostering organizational thinking.

7. Similes and Metaphors

Encourage imaginative thinking by having students create similes and metaphors to describe various objects or situations.

8. Storytelling Circles

Students take turns adding onto a collective story that promotes creative thinking and collaboration skills.

9. Mind Mapping

Guide students through creating visual diagrams that highlight connections between ideas in an organized fashion.

10. Analogy Activities

Students use analogies to explore connections between seemingly unrelated concepts or ideas.

11. Socratic Seminars

The class engages in group discussions using the Socratic method where they answer open-ended questions and challenge each other’s viewpoints respectfully.

12. Create Your Own Country

In this creative activity, students develop the governance, geography, culture, and history of a fictional country.

13. Problem-Solving Challenges

Present students with real-life scenarios and ask them to brainstorm potential solutions as a group.

14. Peer Review Sessions

Students exchange their work and provide feedback on each other’s assignments, fostering critical assessment.

15. Inquiry-Based Science Experiments

Students participate in hands-on experiments that allow them to develop their own hypotheses and draw conclusions based on observations.

16. Optical Illusions

Examine various optical illusions and discuss as a class how our minds can be tricked into perceiving things differently.

17. What Would You Do?

Pose hypothetical situations to students requiring them to think about what they would do in those circumstances.

18. 4 Corners Debate

Assign the corners of your classroom as “Agree,” “Disagree,” “Strongly Agree,” or “Strongly Disagree.” Pose a statement and have students move to a corner based on their opinion, encouraging them to defend their stance.

19. Creating Advertisements

Guide students through the creation of advertisements for different products, promoting persuasive thinking and communication skills.

20. KWL Chart

Use KWL charts (What I Know; What I Want to Know; What I Learned) to encourage reflection on topics or concepts before, during, and after your lesson.

Conclusion:

The incorporation of these 20 critical thinking activities into your elementary classroom can pave the way for the development of vital skills in problem-solving, decision-making, and creativity, positioning children for future success in academics and life beyond school.

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Proven Critical Thinking Activities For Kindergarten

Human beings, throughout their life, make various decisions. Some decisions can be made easily, whereas some require a lot of thinking before coming to a conclusion. I bet that all of us have been there. Such situations require critical thinking. Let’s find out the proven critical thinking activities for kindergarten age kids.

You might have heard this term in many instances, and you might have also thought critically when making certain decisions. The question is whether critical thinking is a skill specific to grownups.

Do kindergarteners ever think critically? Scientifically speaking, humans develop their critical thinking ability from early childhood. Small children have rapidly growing brains; hence they have a lot of potential to enhance their critical thinking abilities. Therefore it is crucial to encourage them to extend those abilities. In this article, we will discuss proven critical thinking abilities for kindergarten.

Critical thinking is an essential ability that every human should have. Developing this ability from a young age will be beneficial to master it as they grow up, which is why humans are encouraged to polish these skills since kindergarten .

There are many activities that kindergarteners can pursue to enhance their critical thinking abilities; some of the proven critical thinking activities for this particular age group include puzzle games, building blocks, reading books, brain teasers, storytelling, rhyming games, and role-playing. 

The importance of critical thinking for kindergarten is immense. As toddlers grow up, they gradually make decisions and act according to different situations. A person who can think critically will find it easier to deal with varying scenarios.

So you should not take the need to develop this ability lightly, and every adult must encourage their children to practice these skills from kindergarten. To get a better understanding of this concern, keep reading!

Table of Contents

How do you teach critical thinking in kindergarten?

It is vital to develop critical thinking in kindergarten, but how can we help small children develop their critical thinking? What activities will be beneficial for this matter? One might feel teaching kindergarteners to develop their critical thinking is challenging.

However, several easy yet productive activities allow them to enhance their critical thinking abilities from a young age. 

Humans inherit specific skills and abilities from birth. Notwithstanding, critical thinking is not an ability or a skill one will gain spontaneously. In other words, one should put effort into developing their critical thinking ability.

Critical thinking is often considered an acquired skill; in order to obtain it, it is essential to learn it from early childhood. As mentioned already, there are multiple ways to introduce critical thinking skills in kindergarten, but what exactly are those mechanisms?

If you need to teach a kindergartener to think critically, there are some fundamental skills that you should make them familiar with. These skills include communication, problem-solving, interpersonal, and collaboration skills.

Given skills lay the base for the development of critical thinking in kindergarten. Therefore any activity that enhances those skills in young children will gradually improve their critical thinking ability. 

Do not limit kindergarteners to one format of activities when introducing activities that develop their critical thinking. Adults can use various ways to help small children to improve above mentioned skills to enhance their critical thinking.

Introduce those skills through play sessions, help children develop hypotheses, and ask open-ended questions. All of these strategies will be beneficial in teaching critical thinking in kindergarten. 

What does critical thinking look like in kindergarten?

It is evident that critical thinking is mandatory for humans in various life events. What does critical thinking look like in kindergarten? Why is it essential in the early childhood stage?

Kids are naturally curious and enthusiastic learners, and they have more capacity to learn things at a rapid pace.

Children demonstrate signs of their urge to learn new things in kindergarten by asking questions, linking ideas, communicating with others, making certain decisions, and justifying them.

Adults must help toddlers by encouraging their enthusiasm to learn new things and helping them develop relevant critical thinking skills. 

Proven critical thinking activities for kindergarten

Below you can find some of the proven critical thinking activities for kindergarten. 

Puzzle games are one of the ideal activities for kindergarteners to evolve their critical thinking skills. Puzzle games are perfect not only for kindergarten but for anyone in any age category to develop a number of skills, including thinking and problem-solving.

Scientifically speaking, puzzle games contribute to brain development. The left and right hemispheres of the brain are responsible for different activities, and puzzle games make both hemispheres function, which develops critical thinking ability to a great extent.

There are puzzles created explicitly for kindergarten, such as jigsaw puzzles with large pieces, and they help small children to enhance their focus and thinking ability.

To make this activity more effective, ensure you give them a puzzle that suits their age limit and join them to make the activity more interactive. 

• Brain teasers and riddles 

Brain teasers are also an excellent exercise for a child’s brain. Brian teasers are an easy activity to perform yet very helpful in evolving critical thinking skills in early childhood.

As we know, small children like to engage in fun activities, so try to make the brain teasers as entertaining as possible. For instance, playing games such as “ I Spy with my little eyes” encourages toddlers to engage better in solving brain teasers.

Just like brain teasers, riddles are also an activity to enhance critical thinking skills in kindergarten. Let the children guess what it is by explaining the facts and characteristics of a person, animal, or object. 

• Storytelling 

Small children find storytelling fascinating. As much as they love to listen to them, giving them the space to narrate stories is also important.

Storytelling is a fruitful way to enhance critical thinking skills in kindergarten. How does storytelling help to develop critical thinking? Storytelling allows small children to interpret things from a better and broader point of view.

You can tell a story or explain a situation to kindergarteners and ask them to continue it as they wish. When narrating stories, children get to become imaginative.

Moreover, it enhances their ability to express their thoughts according to context. All these skills are beneficial for the development of critical thinking.

• Role-playing 

Role-playing is yet another adventurous activity to improve critical thinking in kindergarteners. If you do this activity with a group of small children, you can let them pick a character or assign them a character and ask them to act accordingly.

Imitating another character could be a challenging activity for kindergarten. Nevertheless, this thrives them to think deeply and express their thoughts which is helpful in critical thinking. 

• Reading books 

Reading books is certainly one of the most versatile activities for kindergarteners. The development of critical thinking is also among the benefits of reading.

When using this particular activity for kindergarten, it is essential to make it interactive. Always be mindful to select an appropriate and less complex book to read.

After reading the book, it is vital to ask related questions. The questions should not be too difficult, yet make sure they push children to think, analyze, predict, and compare the information they receive. 

• Building blocks 

Playing with building blocks is also a popular activity in kindergarten. It sure is a fun activity but also valuable for developing critical thinking skills.

Building blocks aid with the development of the logical mastery of small children. Let them be free and build structures as they prefer.

Doing this activity as a group will benefit more in strengthen critical thinking abilities through coordination, collaboration, and communication. 

• Watching movies  

This can be a controversial activity for kindergarten; some believe movies are not the perfect activity for small children, while others think it is. Everything has its ups and downs.

However, if we utilize it correctly, we can get the best out of it; in this case, movies are the same despite varying opinions.

Watching movies is a proven activity helpful in developing critical thinking in kindergarteners. Movies entertain young children; subsequently, they help them think deeper and analyze and observe various situations. 

• Treasure hunt  

A treasure hunt is a fun outdoor activity that helps small children to develop critical thinking. You can be very creative when planning a treasure hunt for kindergarten.

Understanding the clues, finding the objects, and all related activities of a treasure hunt game will uplift the observation skills of toddlers.

Also, it will make them think more rationally and make their choices. Likewise, treasure hunts allow for enhancing critical thinking abilities in kindergarten.

Final thoughts  about critical thinking activities for kindergarten aged kids

Simply put, critical thinking involves logical and rational decision-making. Critical thinking is a skill that benefits many aspects of life which is why every individual should develop it. Humans have more potency to build their critical thinking abilities in early childhood.

Therefore it is mandatory to pursue activities that enhance critical thinking from kindergarten. As discussed in this article, many proven activities improve critical thinking in kindergarten.

Allowing small children to engage in such activities helps them uplift the fundamental skills of critical thinking, eventually making them excellent critical thinkers. 

Stay with us for  more interesting posts  like this!

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Kindergarten Thinking Skills & Key Concepts

Teaches beyond most state & common core standards.

Critical Thinking

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Kindergarten Thinking Skills & Key Concepts: Answer PDF

Kindergarten Thinking Skills & Key Concepts: Teacher's Manual

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Description and Features

This highly-effective, standards-based, 160-page book is a research-based instructional program that teaches beyond most state and Common Core standards by:

• Improving children's observation and description skills
• Developing academic vocabulary
• Developing thinking skills that underlie content learning (describing/defining, identifying similarities and differences, sequencing, and classifying)
• Improving students' understanding of key concepts in mathematics, social studies, and science
• Students completing structured exercises to write sentences and paragraphs
• Carefully sequencing lessons to develop thinking skills
• Employing language integration techniques to teach thinking skills and key concepts

Academic Vocabulary Development The program builds academic vocabulary using these important concepts: describe, compare and contrast, and classify colors, geometric shapes, family members, food, jobs, vehicles, buildings, and position. Observation Skills Observation lessons involve concrete examples using detailed photographs to develop observation skills. The student book provides activities that students may use to clarify their thinking and learning by peer and class discussion. Spatial Thinking Skills     • Describing Shapes – naming shapes, finding shapes to match a description, describing characteristics of a shape     • Similarities and Differences – matching and combining shapes, producing equal figures, figure completion     • Sequences – recognizing and producing the next figure in a sequence     • Classification – classifying by shape and/or color, forming classes, depicting overlapping classes     • Using positional and directional words

Verbal Thinking Skills     • Describing – matching a picture to a description, describing people, animals, or objects shown in pictures, part/whole analysis     • Similarities and Differences – selecting similar people, animals, or objects, explaining similarities and differences     • Sequences – ranking objects or people by a significant characteristic     • Classifications – explaining characteristics of a class, exceptions, sorting into classes

Mental Models This book teaches the characteristics outlined in its mental models needed to describe or define a concept. How We Know It Works     • Increased scores on language proficiency and cognitive abilities tests     • Increased scores on normed or criterion-referenced achievement tests     • Proficient student writing     • Increased number of students placed in advanced classes and subsequent successful performance

Teaching Support This student book can be used with the free, downloadable answer PDF ( available here ) or with a detailed, 176-page Teacher's Manual which can be purchased separately . The Teacher's Manual provides instructions to teach the lessons using research-proven methods that promote students' thinking: direct instruction, cooperative learning, whole sentence responding, and language integration activities. The Teacher's Manual physical book is in black and white, but the eBook version is in color.

Watch a short presentation on this highly effective product. View Online | PowerPoint | PDF

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General license - download.

SOFTWARE LICENSE AGREEMENT

IMPORTANT-READ CAREFULLY

This is a legal agreement between you (a single entity, company, or educational institution) and The Critical Thinking Co.™ for the software accompanying this agreement, which includes computer Software and associated Documentation. By installing this Software on a computer, you agree to be bound by the terms of this agreement. If you do not agree to the terms of this agreement, promptly erase all copies of the software in your possession and return any Software packaging associated with this order within sixty (60) days of purchase to the place from which you obtained it for a full refund.

The Critical Thinking Co.™ hereby grants to you a non-exclusive license to use the software product identified above (the "Software") and the accompanying printed materials and User Manual (the "Documentation") on the terms set forth below.

1. GRANT OF LICENSE. The Critical Thinking Co.™ grants you the right to install and use this Software Product, provided that this software will be installed only in the quantity and for the computer system(s) indicated at the time of your order for the Software.

2. COPYRIGHT. The Software Product and Documentation are protected by copyright laws and international copyright treaties as well as other intellectual property laws and treaties. Therefore, you must treat the Software Product like any other copyrighted material. You may not remove, modify, or alter any of The Critical Thinking Co.'s™ copyright or trademark notices from any part originally contained in or otherwise created by the Software Product, including any notices contained in the Documentation.

3. RESTRICTIONS. You may not modify, translate, reverse engineer, decompile, disassemble, or create derivative works based on the Software, or any portion thereof. The Software Product is licensed as a single product. This Software Product can be installed on a computer as a whole and shall not be separated in parts or disassembled to parts or pieces. You may not rent, lease, or lend the Software or Documentation to any other party without the written permission of The Critical Thinking Co.™. The License is in effect until terminated. The License will terminate automatically if you fail to comply with the limitations described herein. On termination, you must destroy all copies of the Software and Documentation.

4. WARRANTIES. The Critical Thinking Co.™ expressly disclaims any warranty for the Software Product. The Software and Documentation is provided "as is" without warranty of any kind, either expressed or implied, including, without limitation, the implied warranties or merchantability, fitness for a particular purpose, or non-infringement. The entire risk arising out of use or performance of the Software remains with you. If media within this package is defective, remove the software application from your device(s) and return any software packaging associated with this order to The Critical Thinking Co.™ within 60 days of the date of purchase, and they will replace it at no charge.

5. NO LIABILITY FOR CONSEQUENTIAL DAMAGES. In no event shall The Critical Thinking Co.™ or its suppliers be liable for any damages whatsoever (including, without limitation, damages for loss of business profits, business interruption, loss of business information, or any other pecuniary loss) arising out of the use of or inability to use this Software Product, even if The Critical Thinking Co.™ has been advised of the possibility of such damages. Because some states/jurisdictions do not allow the exclusion or limitation of liability for consequential or incidental damages, the above limitation may not apply to you.

6. MISCELLANEOUS. This Agreement represents the complete agreement concerning this license between the parties and supersedes all prior agreements and representations between them. This Agreement may be amended only in writing executed by both parties. The acceptance of any purchase order placed by you is expressly made conditional on your assent to the terms set forth herein, and not those contained within your purchase order. If any provision of this Agreement is held to be unenforceable for any reason, such provision shall be reformed only to the extend necessary to make it enforceable and the remainder of this Agreement shall nonetheless remain in full force and effect. If you acquired this product in the United States, the laws of the State of California govern this Agreement. If this product was acquired outside the United States, then local laws may apply. Should you have any questions concerning this Agreement, or if you desire to contact The Critical Thinking Co.™ for any reason, please write to The Critical Thinking Co.™, PO Box 1610, Seaside, CA 93950-1610, USA; send a fax to 831-393-3277; send email to [email protected]; call 800-458-4849; or refer to The Critical Thinking Co.™'s Website at http://www.criticalthinking.com/ .

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A List of Fun Critical Thinking Activities for Your Children in Kindergarten

As a kindergarten parent, you must exert an effort to engage your kindergarten in critical thinking activities as this will help encourage your kindergarten to think logical ly. Conducting simple but fun critical thinking activities can go a long way and will allow your kindergarten to develop logical reasoning and other essential skills. In this blog, we brought together a list of fun critical thinking activities for your children in kindergarten.

Encourage Their Thinking Process

It is very essential that at such a young age, you already encourage their thinking process. Kindergarten asks a lot of questions and gets curious about a lot of things. Instantly providing them with instant and direct answers, encourage them to think logically and in the process, it will help enhance their logical thinking skills.

Engage Your Kindergarten in Sorting Games

Another fun critical thinking activity for your children in kindergarten that you must try is to engage them in sorting games. Sorting games let them identify and understand the objects. Sorting games are a great way to develop their classification and reasoning skills and abilities.

Solve Puzzles Together with Your Children

Another fun critical thinking activity for your children in kindergarten that we suggest you should try at home is solving puzzles together with your children. Another sure way of raising your children in kindergarten as critical thinkers are to let them solve puzzles with you. Solving puzzles together can likewise help them develop their problem-solving ability and plan a strategy on their own.

Let Them Read Books or Watch a Movie

Turning their pastime into a fun activity and learning process will help them to think critically. Asking logical questions about the book or the movie lets them share their thoughts about the book or movie and in the process, gain insights from the book and the movie.

Inspire Them to Think and Explain their Reasons

Another critical thinking activity that you should try for your children in kindergarten is to inspire them to think by asking them questions. Let them arrive at the answer on their own and based on that answer, let them explain their answer and a reason for their explanation. In this way, they can examine their thought process and will practice their logical and critical thinking skills.

Let us help you improve your kindergarten’s critical thinking skills at Gower Street Kindergarten. Our vision is to every child the opportunity to grow and explore their identity in a community that celebrates diversity. Our curriculum is developed in line with the Victorian Early Years Learning & Development Framework. In planning each session, we consider the development of each child’s physical, emotional, social, and intellectual skills.

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Rowntree Montessori Schools

Inquire | Phone: +1 905 790 3838

2019/04/23 by Natalie

Encouraging Creative and Critical Thinking in Kindergarten

At Rowntree Montessori Schools, we believe that creative thinking and critical thinking skills are essential components of problem solving, which is an important part of the curriculum starting in Pre-Kindergarten Montessori. We understand the importance of not only teaching children about real-world problems, but also of encouraging them and providing them with opportunities to become real-world problem solvers. In addition to the daily and weekly curriculum, we also present all of our students with a monthly STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering and Math) challenge which have allowed children in all grades throughout the school to tackle real-world problems such as deforestation, water scarcity, and water pollution. In each class, students are given an overarching problem and a general task to complete. It is then their goal to work together to complete further research and investigate what is already being done in the real world. Continuing to work as a team, they then have to decide on what they are going to design to solve the problem, how they will build the solution, and how it will work once it is complete. As the year progresses, with each new problem, the solutions that each class are challenged with become more complex, and solutions must be more creative, demonstrating their ability to think critically, to demonstrate innovation and to work cooperatively as a team.

Recently our Prep- ONE (SK) students were given a 2-day hands-on challenge, in which the teachers asked them to use classroom materials to come up with a way to help someone who is in need of a rest.  After much classroom discussion and brainstorming, the Kindergarten students decided to work as a team to build a table and set of chairs so that a person in need of a rest could sit down on the furniture, built entirely out of straws and connectors.  

This challenge gave students the opportunity to showcase their leadership and collaborative skills, as they divided themselves into working groups on their own, with one group of students building chairs and one group building the table. It also offered the teachers the chance to encourage collaboration, as students had to together solve problems that arose while the structures were being built, showcasing teamwork and kindness towards one another. Most importantly, students had the opportunity to practice creative thinking and critical thinking skills .

According to Ellen Booth Church (professor of early childhood education and education consultant for Scholastic) “ creative thinking is the ability to look at a problem in many different ways. This might involve seeing a different way to do something, generating new ideas, or using materials in unique ways. She suggests that being a creative thinker at a young age requires a willingness to take risks, to experiment, and even to make mistakes.” We agree that parents and educators should “help children become both fluent and flexible thinkers, where fluent thinking gives students the ability to come up with ideas, and flexible thinking offers the ability to see many possibilities or view objects or situations in new ways.”  Teachers and parents can encourage creative thinking by asking young children to respond to questions that have many correct answers, and to then reflect on their answers. For example, a parent can have a discussion about nighttime, and ask his or her child to think of everything that lights up in the night, or all the people who work at night, or all the things they would like to do if they stayed up all night. Finally, and very importantly, the parent should help the child to reflect by asking him or her to comment on specific objects or situations in the room. This is similar to what we do at RMS when we encourage the students to make connections between what happens in the classroom and what happens in the real world. By providing regular classroom materials in solving open-ended and real-world problems, we encourage creative solutions.

Church defines critical thinking as “the ability to mentally break down a problem or an idea into parts and analyze them. Sorting, classifying, and comparing similarities and differences are all a part of this important skill. Critical thinking can also be called logical thinking.”  She suggests that teachers and parents can encourage this type of thinking by helping the child understand that when you break larger problems into smaller parts, they become easier to understand and to solve. For example, at RMS we encourage children to practice critical and logical thinking by asking them open-ended questions, such as “How many ways can you sort these blocks?” “How many different ways can you make a building using these blocks?” “How would the building be different if you used blocks that were all the same size?” Once we help students make the connection that the blocks in the classroom represent building materials in the real world, our students are really diving into more complex problem solving. Recently in our Prep- ONE class, we asked students to make a pencil box out of Lego or use a pizza box, construction paper and masking tape to “deliver” a small ball from a table top to the floor. Such problems, while not overly complex, readily encourage critical thinking as the students break down the component parts of the problem and work out one, and often many more, versions of the solution. The debates over “which solution is best, and why?” are further demonstration of the students’ thinking skills.

It is not only through the STEM approach to learning that students are required to solve real-world  problems at RMS. Throughout various subjects, teachers try to incorporate practical hands-on lessons, that are applicable to the real world. For example, in Grade 7, when working with ratios in mathematics, students chose their favourite smoothie recipe and had to scale it up or down in order to serve a given number of people. In Grade 3, while learning about fractions, students recently put their understanding of math and fractions into action by making their own delicious pizzas, and in Grade 4 Social Studies, students recently investigated problems such as the shrinking Arctic, overfishing and urban sprawl, and worked to understand ways in which people can act as good environmental stewards.

By regularly incorporating real-world problems into the curriculum and providing as many opportunities for our children to think creatively and critically when solving these problems, we ensure that we preparing the children of today for the future of tomorrow.

To learn more about Rowntree Montessori Schools (RMS), continue browsing our website and ideally drop by any of our welcoming, friendly and family oriented campuses for a personal tour anytime Monday-Friday 9:30am-3:00pm. If you prefer, call to book an appointment for a personal tour anytime Monday-Friday 9:30am-3:00pm.

More details about Rowntree Montessori Schools ‘ approach to education can be seen by clicking here .

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Fun activities for developing critical thinking skills in preschoolers

Inside: Critical thinking preschool worksheets to download for free!

Problem-solving and critical thinking are important skills children in preschool need to develop in order to succeed in school.

Include these critical thinking preschool worksheets in your curriculum to give them enough opportunities for practice.

You might also like my brand new Things that don’t belong worksheets !

Critical thinking preschool worksheets

Whether you are taking a walk outside or reading a book together with your child, there are always opportunities to practice critical thinking.

For instance, encourage your child to look for repeating patterns, for similarities and differences between objects and so on. The more they understand the world around them the better they will be able to generalize and utilize the knowledge in more complex situations.

To provide you with some pen and paper exercises, I’ve created these critical thinking preschool worksheets.

Feel free to use them in the classroom or at home.

And make sure to expand on your child’s answers. Ask her more about each group of pictures, why they belong/don’t belong together, and so forth.

To download, just click on the download link at the very end.

Similar: Things that go together worksheets

Feel free to use these worksheets in the classroom or at home. But please remember that any other re-distribution or altering are not allowed. Thank you. 

Critical thinking skills

7 thoughts on “Fun activities for developing critical thinking skills in preschoolers”

Hey Kristina, thanks. My 5 years old found it really interesting. Do you have more?

Not the same kind of activities. But it’s a good idea to create more like these, I will add them to my to-do list!

Hey Kristina, Thank you so much for the resources. I have a 1st grader with special needs and am always at a loss for what to do to supplimet our schools amazing special ed departments at home. Your worksheets are life savers!

I am happy to help!

Kristina, thanks for saving our kids from non-stop TV and boredom thanks to your great print-outs these days!!!

Lol, you’re welcome! I know it’s hard to constantly entertain them at home. My two boys are the same. All the best to you!

Very interesting Kristina..Thank you for this Materials I used them with my 4 year old daughter!!!!☺💖

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Critical Thinking for Preschoolers

Written by: Kokotree

Last updated: April 26, 2023

A s a toddler parent, you might wonder if it’s too early to introduce your little one to critical thinking skills. The good news is, it’s never too early! Nurturing these skills in your preschooler can be crucial to their overall development. So, let’s jump in and explore how you can start developing critical thinking in your preschooler today, all while having a great time together!

The Importance of Critical Thinking in Early Childhood Education

Reading time, mealtime conversations, the “what if” game, puzzles and logic games, building and construction, finding the right learning app for toddlers, encourage curiosity and exploration, praise effort and improvement, create a safe space for questions and discussions, model critical thinking behaviors, attending parent-teacher conferences, communicate regularly, developmental milestones, adjusting expectations and activities, 1. what age should i start teaching my child critical thinking skills, 2. how can i tell if my preschooler is developing critical thinking skills, 3. are there specific activities or games that help develop critical thinking, 4. what role do parents play in fostering critical thinking skills, 5. how can i collaborate with my child’s preschool teacher or childcare provider, 6. can screen time contribute to critical thinking development, 7. why is curiosity important for critical thinking, 8. what is a growth mindset, and how does it relate to critical thinking, 9. is puzzle-solving the only way to promote critical thinking in preschoolers, 10. how can i support my child if they struggle with critical thinking activities, 11. how do i know if a learning app for toddlers is appropriate for critical thinking development, 12. how do developmental milestones affect my preschooler’s critical thinking abilities, 13. what should i do if i have concerns about my child’s critical thinking development.

Preschoolers can develop critical thinking skills through preschool age -appropriate activities and games that challenge them to solve problems, make decisions, and analyze information. Engaging in these experiences will teach them to ask questions, reason, and communicate effectively, building a solid foundation for their future education and overall development.

Early childhood education is a crucial period for developing a solid foundation of cognitive abilities. During this time, children are like sponges, absorbing information from their surroundings and interactions. By introducing critical thinking skills at this stage, you’re laying a strong groundwork for their future academic accomplishments and life success. Moreover, it will help your child adapt to various situations and solve problems creatively and effectively.

Incorporating Critical Thinking into Daily Routines

One of the best ways to cultivate critical thinking skills in your preschooler is by integrating them into your daily routines. This involvement can create a seamless learning environment where your child understands that problem-solving is a regular part of life.

Reading together is a quintessential activity for preschoolers. During this time, ask open-ended questions that encourage your child’s thought process. Pause and discuss the story, exploring alternative outcomes or what might happen next. This practice expands their imagination while also engaging critical thinking skills.

Mealtimes can be an excellent opportunity for developing communication and reasoning skills. Encourage your child to express their choices, preferences, and reasons for doing so. Talk about the recipe or meal preparation and how certain ingredients come together to create a final dish. This encourages your preschooler to think about cause and effect relationships.

Fun Activities and Games for Developing Critical Thinking Skills

Introducing critical thinking through playtime and hands-on activities is an effective approach for capturing your preschooler’s attention and promoting learning. Here are a few fun, engaging, and educational games and activities that will help them develop these essential cognitive abilities.

This simple, conversation-based game encourages your child to think creatively and consider alternative scenarios. Start by presenting a situation, and then ask your preschooler, “What if…?” questions related to it. For instance, “What if our pet could talk? What would they say?” or “What if cars could fly? How would that change our lives?” This activity promotes problem-solving and helps your child visualize different outcomes.

Puzzles and logic games are excellent tools for encouraging critical thinking. They require your child to analyze, strategize, and apply their reasoning abilities to solve problems. Choose age-appropriate puzzles and games that challenge your preschooler without causing frustration.

Activities that involve building and construction, such as using blocks, LEGO, or magnetic tiles, help sharpen problem-solving skills. These materials require preschoolers to plan, design, and adapt their constructions to achieve a complete structure successfully. The trial-and-error process fosters critical thinking and perseverance.

Exploring Educational Resources to Supplement Critical Thinking Learning

There are abundant educational resources available to enhance your preschooler’s critical thinking journey. From physical toys and books to digital platforms, you can find materials tailored specifically to their age and developmental stage. Among these resources, a learning app for toddlers can offer a comprehensive and engaging experience.

When looking for a learning app for toddlers, consider one that promotes critical thinking through age-appropriate, interactive activities. The right app will feature various game-based learning experiences focused on problem-solving, creativity, and reasoning. Moreover, it should be user-friendly, visually appealing, and offer a safe online environment for your child.

Reading reviews and requesting recommendations from other parents or educators can help you navigate this process and find the perfect match for your preschooler’s needs. Start by browsing apps that focus specifically on early childhood education and critical thinking development. With the right app, your child will be engaged and entertained, all while building the foundation for future success.

Supporting Your Child’s Critical Thinking Journey

As you introduce critical thinking activities and games to your preschooler, keep in mind that the learning process will be different for each child. Some children may quickly grasp concepts, while others may require more guidance and patience. Adapt your approach according to your child’s individual needs and celebrate their accomplishments, big or small.

Curiosity is an essential component of critical thinking. Encourage your preschooler to explore their surroundings and provide a variety of materials to spark their imagination. Start discussions about the world, ask questions, and listen attentively to their thoughts and ideas. Celebrate their curiosity as an essential part of their overall cognitive growth.

When acknowledging your child’s efforts or success in critical thinking activities, focus on their progress and improvement. Praising your preschooler’s hard work instead of their innate ability fosters a growth mindset and teaches them that they can improve their skills through practice and determination.

Introducing critical thinking skills during the preschool years is essential for your child’s cognitive development and prepares them for a lifetime of learning. By incorporating activities that promote problem-solving, reasoning, and decision-making into your preschooler’s daily life, you’re setting them up for success in their academic and personal future. With a variety of fun activities, educational resources, and supportive guidance, you can spark their critical thinking journey and help them grow into confident, capable individuals.

The Role of Parents and Family in Toddler Education and Critical Thinking

As the primary caregivers and role models, parents and families have a significant impact on the development of critical thinking in toddlers. By actively participating in your child’s learning process, you can provide a supportive and nurturing environment that fosters positive growth.

To promote critical thinking in toddler education, create a home environment where your child feels comfortable asking questions and engaging in discussions. Encourage them to express their thoughts and ideas, and actively listen to what they have to say. Show patience and understanding, and avoid dismissing or criticizing their questions, as this can discourage further exploration and curiosity.

Children learn a lot by observing the people around them. By demonstrating critical thinking behaviors in your everyday life, you set an example for your toddler to follow. When making decisions or solving problems, involve your child in the process and explain the reasoning behind your choices. This can help them understand the importance of thinking critically and empower them to use those skills in their own lives.

Collaborating with Educators and Childcare Providers

Collaborating with your child’s educators and childcare providers is an essential component of building a cohesive approach to critical thinking development. By working together, you can support your child’s learning both inside and outside the classroom.

Attending parent-teacher conferences is an opportunity to discuss your child’s progress and gain insight into the critical thinking activities and strategies used in the classroom. You may learn about new techniques, resources, or experiences to incorporate into your home routine and build upon your child’s classroom learning.

Regular communication with your child’s educators and childcare providers is key to staying informed about their progress and addressing concerns or challenges that may arise. Share information about your child’s interests, accomplishments, and struggles so that they can tailor their approach and support your child’s critical thinking journey effectively.

Understanding the Development of Critical Thinking Skills

Recognizing that critical thinking skills develop gradually over time can help you set realistic expectations and adopt a patient, growth-focused approach. It’s also essential to be aware of developmentally-appropriate milestones and activities so that you can support your child’s cognitive growth effectively.

Even though each child is unique, understanding broad developmental milestones can give you a general idea of the progress your toddler should be making. From ages 3 to 5, children typically begin to develop the ability to organize and classify objects, understand cause-and-effect relationships, and ask “why” questions. Being mindful of these milestones can help you identify any potential issues and address them promptly.

As your child grows and develops, their critical thinking skills will evolve and deepen. Tailoring activities to their developmental stage will ensure that you continue to challenge and engage them in the learning process. By adjusting your expectations and offering age-appropriate critical thinking experiences, you provide the support and guidance necessary for your preschooler to thrive.

Frequently Asked Questions

Here are some common questions and concerns that parents often have regarding the development of critical thinking skills in preschoolers. We’ve compiled answers to help provide guidance and support as you embark on this exciting and essential aspect of your child’s early education.

There is no specific age when you should start teaching critical thinking skills to your child; however, the preschool years (ages 3-5) are a critical time for cognitive development. Introducing problem-solving, reasoning, and decision-making skills during this stage can help lay the groundwork for future learning and success.

Some indicators that your preschooler is developing critical thinking skills include their ability to ask questions, make connections between ideas or objects, consider different perspectives, and evaluate information. Keep in mind that every child develops at their own pace, and they may not exhibit all of these signs at once.

Yes, many age-appropriate activities and games can help promote critical thinking in preschoolers. These include puzzles, building and construction toys, imaginative play, and asking open-ended questions during reading time or everyday conversations.

Parents play a significant role in fostering critical thinking skills by creating a supportive learning environment, modeling critical thinking behaviors, and engaging their child in thought-provoking discussions and activities.

Collaborate with your child’s preschool teacher or childcare provider by maintaining open lines of communication, attending parent-teacher conferences, and discussing strategies for promoting critical thinking both at home and in the classroom.

Screen time can contribute to critical thinking development if it involves interactive, educational content designed for toddler education such as learning apps, games, or videos that promote problem-solving and decision-making skills.

Curiosity is essential for critical thinking because it drives children to explore their surroundings, ask questions, and seek new experiences. By nurturing their curiosity, you encourage a lifelong love of learning and help them develop the cognitive skills necessary for success in school and life.

A growth mindset is the belief that abilities and skills can be developed through hard work and determination. Encouraging a growth mindset in your preschooler promotes the idea that they can improve their critical thinking skills by practicing and persevering, which can lead to a more confident and resilient learner.

While puzzle-solving is an excellent way to promote critical thinking by challenging preschoolers to analyze, strategize, and apply reasoning, it is not the only approach. Engaging in imaginative play, asking open-ended questions, and promoting cause and effect discussions are also effective methods for developing young minds.

If your child struggles with critical thinking activities, offer guidance and support, adapt the activities to their developmental level, and encourage them to persevere in the face of challenges. Remember to praise their effort and progress rather than focusing solely on successful outcomes.

When selecting a learning app for toddlers, look for one that features interactive, age-appropriate activities designed to promote critical thinking skills. Additionally, ensure that the app is user-friendly, visually appealing, and safe for online use by young children.

Developmental milestones provide a general overview of the cognitive abilities your preschooler should be developing at their age. Being mindful of these milestones can help you identify any potential issues and address them in a timely manner. Keep in mind, however, that every child develops at their own pace.

If you have concerns about your child’s critical thinking development, consult with their preschool teacher, childcare provider, or a pediatrician for guidance and support. They can provide recommendations for further evaluation or intervention if needed.

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Seven Popular Critical Thinking Activities for Preschoolers

In this post, we will discover seven critical thinking activities for preschoolers that are simple, easy to set up and fun to play.

Critical thinking is one of the most important skills that children need to master in order to become successful in tomorrow’s world.

I remember when I was a student, schools relied heavily on memorization and basically repeating as accurately as possible what the teacher or a book said. Schools praised “recorder students”.

Although things have started to change and in some schools, logical thinking is encouraged and taught, unfortunately, many schools still have this antiquated system in which children simply repeat a list of facts.

Kids need to be able to process information, analyze a situation, make inferences, compare and contrast.

As parents, we need to help our children reach a higher level of logical reasoning as it is a prized skill nowadays.

Although children will develop their thinking skills through day-to-day interactions, we can also help them build a strong foundation by playing logical thinking games with them whenever possible.

To this end, here are seven simple critical thinking activities for preschoolers that are easy to set up. Most only require building blocks, pen and paper, toys that you already have in your house or a printable.

This post ma y contain affiliate links and I may earn a small commission when you click on the links at no additional cost to you. As an Amazon Affiliate, I earn from qualifying purchases. You can read my full disclosure  here .

Thinking Games for Preschoolers

The odd one out.

The Odd One Out is a great thinking game to play with kids. It improves their critical thinking by using their knowledge of patterns, vocabulary, differences and similarities.

There are a few ways of playing The Odd One Out:

• online games
• using toys around the house
• as a listening activity by saying words

For those who are new to this game, let me explain it. You present the child with four objects or images. Three of those objects have something in common while the fourth is not connected in any way to the three. The child has to identify the “intruder”. Of course, the game is not limited to four objects, you can choose to have more.

What Comes Next (Patterns)

A good yet simple reasoning game for kids is What Comes Next. Patterns teach children what comes next thus teaching them to make logical connections and use their critical thinking.

Understanding patterns help us make educated guesses, assumptions and provide order in a world that may seem chaotic.

What Comes Next is a simple game that, like The Odd One Out, can be played using worksheets, toys around the house, apps and computer games.

I like playing this game with building blocks as it allows me to practice colours, sizes, numbers and more.

Books offer great opportunities to practice reasoning skills.

When reading to your child, simply stop and ask open-ended questions like “What do you think will happen to X (the character)?” or “What do you think X will do now?”

This will encourage the child to make assumptions and come up with creative answers.

There’s nothing better than a riddle to fire up those brain cells and improve their thinking skills. Riddles are great because they help children focus on one problem until they find the solution, they exercise the brain (like any muscle, it needs to be used in order to stay in shape), they encourage children to think outside the box and come up with creative answers, not to mention that they are fun and don’t need any prep work.

The internet is full of riddles for kids so all you have to do is search for some. Here are some ideas.

Match the shadow

Shadow Matching is a simple activity for young kids that helps them enhance their problem-solving skills. It is a great activity for visual discrimination and memory, observing patterns, similarities and differences.

You can download this cute Farm Animals Shadow Matching Game for free.

Tic Tac Toe

Most of us are familiar with this game as it has been around for a very long time (ancient Egyptians have invented it, would you believe it).

Tic Tac Toe is a simple game, although apparently there are 255.000 different outcomes, that can be played with kids as young as two or three years of age.

The rules are easy to understand: there are two players, one has X as a symbol and the other one a 0. They play on a 3×3 grid and the goal is for the players to put their symbols three times in a row, either vertically, horizontally or diagonally.

You can play Tic Tac Toe either the traditional way, with pen and paper, or get the game with manipulatives which will definitely be more attractive for kids.

This Tic Tac Toe from Melissa&Doug looks fantastic!

Choose something…

This is a simple, yet effective critical thinking activity for preschoolers, although it can very well be played with toddlers as well.

You can play this game using either images or toys around the house. The idea is simple: present the child with six toys (there can be more or less depending on the child’s age). Make sure that some toys have similarities (colour, shape, material etc).

The child has to choose the correct toy/image based on your description. Take the picture above as an example. Some of the sentences that I used with my boy were:

• Choose something that is round but hasn’t got bumps on it.
• Choose something that is a cube and made of wood.
• Choose something that is a cube but hasn’t got numbers on it.
• Choose something that has a square shape but it’s not a cube.

Although it is true that children will develop their critical thinking through everyday interactions, we can always help them boost this very important skill by playing games with them like the ones presented above.

Brain-Boosting Memory Match Games

Fun Activities for Critical Thinking

Shape Matc hing Activity from Recycled Paper

Activities for Thinking Skills Development

I hope you found this post useful and that these critical thinking activities for preschoolers will provide moments of fun and learning for your little one(s).

If you liked this article don’t forget to share it 😉

Mom of two wonderful children, dedicated teacher and book lover.

5 thoughts on “Seven Popular Critical Thinking Activities for Preschoolers”

Great ideas! My daughter is about to start preschool and one of the activities we were encouraged to do over school holidays was asking to guess what will happen next in a book. I think she’d really enjoyable the other suggestions too.

These are all great ideas that are sure to get kids engaged! I know for sure my four year old loves questions, so he’ll respond really well to these. Thank you for the fantastic post 🙂

Great activities. I love engaging kids in critical thinking activities and puzzle, keeps their mind sharp and help develop their problem solving skills.

You have great ideas for preschool critical thinking activities! Lately, my three-year-old daughter has been into doing pattern activities. We have a large bowl of those colored glass flat stones that you find at an arts and craft store. We made really cool patterns with them by color. The other day, she made a super long pattern with them going down the hallway!

Critical thinking is such an important skill to pass to our children. Thanks for the tips!

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10 Fun Critical Thinking Activities for Preschoolers

Posted on Last updated: May 29, 2023

Some children loves puzzles and love a challenge. There are different ways to strengthen critical thinking skills at an early age. Here are 10 critical thinking activities for preschoolers and older toddlers that will help young children become critical thinkers. These are simple activities that you can try today. 

Critical Thinking Games

What Can You Make with a Circle?  

This is a fun and creative game to play at home, in the car, on an airplane, or in the waiting room. It is a fun way to explore that there is more than one way to solve a problem and more than one right answer. Make a circle on the chalkboard or on a piece of paper and challenge your child to turn it into something else. Will they turn it into a flower, a sun, or will it become the body of an animal? There is no correct answer. 

A Copy Me game is a great way to develop spatial awareness. Use different household objects to make a design and then let your child copy it using a duplicate set of materials! In this picture, I set up the design on the left and the materials on the right were for my son to arrange. After you have done this over and over again. Have your child challenge you buy making a design and having you copy it. Creating the design and checking your answer will develop those skills in a different way. 

Possible Materials:

• craft sticks
• cookie cutters
• magnetic letters

What’s Missing? Part 1

This critical thinking activity can even be done on the go. All you need is paper and a pencil or dry erase board. Draw a picture of something and leave off a detail. Ask your child, “What’s missing?”.

• child’s name

What’s Missing? Part 2

This challenge is easier than What’s Missing – Part 1. Reuse an old magazine or ad to create this critical thinking activity. Cut out different pictures and cut part of the picture off. Challenge your child to put it back together. 

Sticker Puzzles

Foam stickers and paper are the materials you need to set the stage in this critical thinking exercise. Arrange the stickers in a certain design on the left and challenge your child to recreate it on the right. I stuck the stickers to the paper in the design on the left, but had my son just set the stickers on the paper in the correct arrangement on the right. That way we could reuse this activity. I keep it in a bag and throw it in my purse for the restaurant or waiting room. 

Squares in a Shape

How can the squares fit inside these shapes? I made this activity by arranging the wooden square blocks on the page and then tracing it around the outside. Some of these are trickier than others to complete. If you don’t have any wooden blocks like those shown, try using legos. 

Sticker Stories

Creative thinking is strengthened as older children design their own story with stickers. Arrange stickers on the page and then add details with crayons or markers. When your child is finished with the design, challenge them to tell you a story about what is happening in the picture. You can write the story down or just listen to it. 

Styrofoam Sculptures

Open ended play is the best way to promote critical thinking! What will your child make with styrofoam pieces and toothpicks? You can also substitute marshmallows or slices of pool noodles with the styrofoam. 

Cookie Cutter Puzzles

Younger children will love this simple puzzle made from cookie cutters or different objects. Trace the cookie cutter or specific shape and challenge your child to match them up. 

Mystery Bag

Mystery bag is so much fun and gets their senses thinking!  Put some fun objects in a bag (pompom, feather, plastic animals). Using deductive reasoning, your child will guess what the object is BEFORE she sees it.

Board Games and Card Games

The good news is that board games and card games are excellent for developing critical thinking skills and include the important skills of learning how to take turns and how to handle losing. 

• Tic Tac Toe
• Connect Four

Trying a simple experiment or wondering how things work are also natural ways to strengthen the critical thinking mindset. The Way Things Work Now by David Macaulay is a great book to get your child wondering and asking questions about how things work. Not a Box by Antoinette Portis is a fun picture book that illustrates how to think outside the box (literally).  

These critical thinking games are a few of our favorites. Overall, the end goal is for your child to be curious, ask their own questions, make logical connections, and to find creative solutions. The more logic and reasoning skills your child has, the better learner they will be in their own life.

Wednesday 13th of May 2015

I love this list. I have a bunch of puffy stickers (they were on clearance and I had to buy them!) so now I know what to do with them. They've been sitting in my cabinet for some time. :)