Why Critical Thinking Is the Class Your Homeschool Can't Skip (Plus Some of Our Favorite Resources for Teaching It)

Whether they’re in elementary, middle, or high school, your kids will benefit from building critical thinking skills.

Kids learn critical thinking by actually doing it, said curriculum theorist Hilda Taba, and to do it, they need opportunities to practice creative thinking and problem solving in their everyday learning lives. Critical thinking has become a buzzword in education circles, but for homeschoolers, the skills to manipulate ideas, critically examine information, and combine knowledge in different ways may be the most important things your students learn.

You can teach critical thinking by — well, teaching critical thinking. Opportunities pop up all the time in your everyday life that call on your critical thinking skills. Practice asking better, more nuanced questions about news stories you hear on the radio or commercials you see on YouTube. Model drilling down to the very specific definitions of words — what’s the difference between analyzing and explaining? What’s the emotional difference between “qualified” and “superior?” Work on developing counter arguments for ideas — what’s the best argument someone else could make against your strongest point?

Critical thinking is one of those things that comes up naturally in life, but you may also want to consider a curriculum that helps your homeschooler develop a critical thinking toolkit in an organized way. These are some of our favorites:

Brain Teasers

Best for: Elementary

Progressively challenging exercises push students gently through the basics of critical thinking, from dot-to-dot puzzles and codes to solve to simple beginning logic problems.

Analogy Adventures

Best for: Elementary, Middle

Analogies are a great tool for critical thinking, and this curriculum helps students build the skills they need to make meaningful, intelligent comparisons between two things.

Prufrock Press Logic and Thinking Skills

Best for: Elementary, Middle

It’s never too early to introduce kids to the principles of deductive and inductive logic, and this series of increasingly sophisticated lessons is a great place to start.

Developing Critical Thinking Through Science

Best for: Elementary, Middle

The scientific method is critical thinking in action — you can think of lab science as applied critical thinking — and this program encourages young scientists to think about why an experiment is set up the way it is and how to use the information it gives them.

A Case of Red Herrings

Best for: Middle

These fun logic problems encourage students to think creatively with their solutions — this is especially fun in small groups, so this curriculum could be a great base for a homeschool co-op class.

Critical Thinking Activities

Best for: Middle, High

The emphasis in this curriculum is on mathematical critical thinking, including imagery, patterns, and classic logic. The mathematic approach is especially friendly for students who don’t love literature-based philosophy classes.

How to Lie with Statistics

Best for: High

OK, this is a book rather than a curriculum proper, and it’s an old book with old information, but it remains a fascinating look at how advertisers position data to make it serve their ends. You will never read a science article in a newspaper the same way again.

Building Thinking Skills

Best for: All ages

The Critical Thinking Company, unsurprisingly, has one of the best comprehensive critical thinking curricula out there, designed to carry students from preschool through college preparation. The Daily Mind Benders are a fun way to add a little critical thinking to your morning or bedtime routine, too.

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