10 Minute Critical Thinking Activities For Math

Encourage students to use critical thinking skills to evaluate, then solve, a variety of math enrichment problems. Topics include number theory, geometry, mathematical reasoning, sequencing and patterning, order of operations, algebra, spatial visualization, transformations, and more. Includes many open-ended and non-traditoinal problems to boost brain power in math.

Covers a wide variety of topics including understanding patterns; using algebraic symbols; solving problems with graphs, tables, and equations; and more. Works as an end-of-class activity, extra-credit, or at-home assignment. Includes teaching suggestions, skills matrix, and answer section.

For teachers who need to fill “in-between” time. These puzzles, games, stories, and brain teasers sharpen your students’ focus. The titles say it all: Decomposition, Nab the Kidnapper!, Peanut Butter Is . . ., Don’t Bug Me, and 52 more. Includes answer key. See other 10-Minute Critical-Thinking Activities titles

Build critical-thinking skills in a workplace context! Allows students to solve realistic job-related problems through 50 brief scenarios Builds skills in communication, prioritization, decision making, comprehension, and human relations

This book originated as part of the K-5 mathematics curriculum, Investigations in Number, Data, and Space as quick explorations woven throughout the program to support each unit. Teachers asked that these activities be assembled in a single, easy-to-access collection, and that is how Ten Minute Math came to be.Whether or not you use Investigations, Ten Minute Math is a valuable resource for ongoing work in three major areas of the elementary mathematics curriculum: Number, Data analysis, and Two- and three dimensional space (geometry).With the activities in these three areas, you can help your students acquire broader mathematical thinking and problem-solving skills. You will also help them increase their strategies for mental calculation, gain confidence in inventing their own approaches for solving problems, and become more fluent in reflecting on and articulating their problem-solving processes.

... Presents activities to help students develop their thinking and problem-solving skills. Mathematics curriculum specialists have identified from ten to fifteen strategies that can help students solve nonroutine math problems. Often students may need to use more than one such strategy to arrive at the solution for a given problem. Some of these strategies require that students use skills such as thinking visually, recognizing patterns, using logical reasoning, and doing organized counting ...