(Revised May 2008.)
When I was 13, my parents were in a dilemma. They wanted to teach logic and thinking skills to me and my brother and sisters, but they did not know how. In the years since the, my parents did find logic books and videos. Some were excellent. Some were hard to use. I've tried to distill their research and my own research into a suggested course of study for homeschools.
For learning at home, I think a logic textbook needs to be:
You can read our reviews of logic books and materials that are on the market and check out our list of logic resources available online.
Before age 13, I think children can benefit from pre-logic mind exercises. Children enjoy sorting shapes into classes, connecting words with a similar meaning, and knowing what follows in a series of things. Studies have shown that these activities develop the cognitive domain in a child's mind. Just as a child practices handwriting skills to improve small motor control in his hands, the brain is like a muscle which becomes stronger and more focused as it is exercised.
Pre-logic activities are optional. There is only so much time in the day, and some things take precedence over others. Do not worry that your child will be irretrievably damaged because you never sat down with him and sorted shapes into boxes. Obviously many children have done fine without these special activities. Children love doing activities which make them to think, and they may find these activities naturally on their own.
Games and everyday activities may develop your child's powers for thinking. For hundreds of years, old-fashioned games such as checkers, chess, dominoes, and card games, such as rummy and bridge, have stretched people's minds. Modern games such as Uno, Rummikub, Scrabble and strategy games like Risk, are enjoyable ways to exercise your mind.
A natural way to stimulate a child's mind is simply to converse with him. Open the door to deep conversations with your child when he is young and this relationship will continue all his life. You might want to read our article on The President Has a Banana.
Reading good classic books aloud to children is also good for their minds. Authors like Stevenson, E.B. White, Dickens, and Lewis wrote stories which gave children a bigger picture of the world and stimulate them to think about things that go deeper than the surface.
Learning logic is more than just using a logic curriculum. It encompasses all of life. When we talk about learning logic, we're talking about a life-style of good thinking.
Building Thinking Skills is a set of pre-logic workbooks published by The Critical Thinking Company. These books are well designed. They provide a fun and stimulating sequence of activities which children enjoy. Each page is self-explanatory.
Building Thinking Skills is not sequential. You can jump into whichever book fits your child's learning ability. The Teacher's Manuals include the answers to each exercise. My mother let us do as many pages as we wanted, skipping parts when they were too easy, and slowing down when we came to more challenging material.
If you want to use the books with more than one child, then you may consider using dry erase markers on clear plastic sheets placed over each page. This lets you you wipe off the sheet and reuse it for the next page. This leaves the book unmarked for the next child to use.
Primary & Book 1 can be used before age 10. However, my mother did not use workbooks with us before age 10 because they can be somewhat of a waste of time.
Book 2 can be used at age 10. The Teacher's Manual is not needed; problems are easy for a parent to solve.
Book 3 Figural can be used at age 11. The Teacher's Manual is recommended because problems can be challenging even for a parent. Activities include describing shapes, and words; following directions; antonyms and synonyms; analogy; parts of a whole; mapping and directionality; logical connectives; pattern folding; tracking, rotation, and reflection; mental manipulation of two dimensional objects; etc.
Book 3 Verbal can be used at age 12. The Teacher's Manual is recommended. Activities include deductive reasoning; denotation/ connotation; following directions; map skills; time ranking; degree of meaning; logical connectives; flowcharts; parts of a whole; branching diagrams; analogy; congruence; etc.
Around age thirteen, something happens in a kids’ brain – he begins to ask questions. "Why do I have to go to bed at 8:00 PM? Why do words have meaning? Did God create evil?" Connections are made and he begins to put ideas together which before were just a jumble of information. His head is converting from a disorganized storage shed into a organized information warehouse. He might come up with some logical conclusions which may startle the adults.
I think the key to teaching logic to young students is the materials you use. In professional academia, logic is considered a college subject and children are thought too young to learn logic. But I think children can use logical thinking skills, and the sooner their mind is trained to reason, the better they will be equipped to study other subjects and lead a thoughtful life. But logic textbooks are written for college students and nobody would expect a child to learn math or logic from a college textbook. I believe children are perfectly capable of learning logic if they have materials which present the subject at their level.
This course of study is only our suggestion – you may modify it to fit your schedule, priorities and individual needs.
This course of study is progressive: each step builds on the one before. A new student needs to be acclimated to logic step-by-step in the same way that math is taught over junior high and high school. I think that a student would have difficulty diving streight into Introductory Logic without some previous acquaintance with logic. He may have trouble adjusting to the higher temperature.
If possible, parents should work through the materials together with their children. Children may become discouraged when they encounter problems they can't solve on their own. Besides, parents often need to learn the logic as much as their children. Individual students can study the materials by themselves, but I believe there is value in class discussion time.
Some people learn logic, and then never use it. It would be a shame to set your logic accomplishments on a shelf, so that your friends can admire them. I think you will discover that logic is as useful as knowing how to read. Logic has taught me how to think, which can be a tremendous advantage when everyone else does not! Logic is not for elite intellectuals. It is for ordinary Christians like you and me.
Copyright April 01, 2000, all rights reserved. 105750 views
1 • kc • April 27, 2008 • 11:42 AM
I can’t seem to figure out what video you are actually recommending and where to purchase it. It seems like you’re saying “Introductory Logic” by wilson and nance, which I can’t find anywhere.
2 • Sarah • April 28, 2008 • 10:16 PM
I am using the Fallacy Detective & Thinking Toolbox for my homeschooled highschooler. He is enjoying working through them independently. Do you have any suggestions for how to award credit for these books? Would they be considered sufficient material to cover a complete “logic” course? Is there anything which should be added to supplement and round out a full course in logic? I’ve never taken a formal logic course, and so I am unsure of what would be equitable for credit. If the course name “logic” appears on his transcript, it communicates a certain course of study, just by the title alone. Do these books cover the material generally assumed by colleges to be covered in such courses, and if so, is it one course or two separate courses, one semester or one year for one or both? In other words, how many credits total?
Thanks,
Sarah
3 • nbluedorn • April 28, 2008 • 10:36 PM
Introductory Logic, DVD Set, 4th Edition http://www.logosschool.com/materials/shop/item.asp?itemid=78
4 • nbluedorn • April 28, 2008 • 10:39 PM
The Fallacy Detective and The Thinking Toolbox could be put down as a course in “critical thinking” at the college level. However, they don’t equal a college course in logic because that would require some study of syllogisms and propositional logic. If you also finished James Nance’s Introductory Logic along with our books, that would probably equal an introductory college course in logic.
5 • Michelle • July 11, 2008 • 9:40 PM
So, do you recommend skipping the Critical Thinking books that were previously recommended for use after The Thinking Toolbox and going straight to Introductory Logic?
6 • nbluedorn • July 19, 2008 • 12:02 PM
Yeah. The Critical Thinking books are great. But, there is a lot of overlap and it would probably not be worth the extra time.
7 • Suzanne Murray • July 21, 2008 • 7:39 AM
Hello Nathaniel, where will I be able to find the “Building Thinking Skills” books and Teacher’s Manuals?
8 • nbluedorn • July 23, 2008 • 10:24 AM
9 • Johnathan Mosher • January 04, 2009 • 6:53 PM
Its good that you are teaching him from a christian point of view. Wouldn’t want to loose a child to atheism. I plan to start my children in home school where I can shelter and contain their thoughts within the realm of Christianity.
Amen.
10 • Heather • April 06, 2009 • 11:17 AM
You mentioned age 13 to start logic… do you believe that children are ever ready before that age? How long do you study each of the resources you mentioned in the course of study? (I know you would want to go at your child’s pace but can you give me a rough estimate?) Thank you for you & your family’s ministry- we are learning a lot!
11 • Jeannie • April 08, 2009 • 6:44 PM
I am considering teaching a critical thinking class for our local homeschool co-op. I want to do enough work for a high school credit. Do you think the fallacy detecive would count as 1/2 high school semester credit, and the thinking toolbox for 1/2 semester credit, or do each of these count as 1 full semester credit for high school ?
12 • Claudio Fernando Maciel • June 30, 2009 • 2:08 PM
So you recommend teaching Christian points of view as a way of teaching logics? Is that correct?
So you are excluding everybody else in your context, from Jewishes to Atheists. You are trying to make children think in an intuitive way using tools that are doubtfull on their own.
I mean, how are you going to teach your children that it is logical to think that Noah built an arc and managed to fit inside it just about every existent animal on earth? Let alone telling them that the carnivore animals managed to not eat flesh untill there was enough meat to be eaten again on earth, how is that logical?
How is that logical to teach children that there is a man who lives I have no idea where in the universe, who actually manages to listen to everybody’s toughts, prayers, cries, and so on, while the logical way of thinking tells us that no such thing can be accomplished? I do not even to mention the entire part of God being present everywhere at the same time. We are talking about teaching logics here.
13 • Mike • July 07, 2009 • 11:56 PM
Great site! I’ve been looking for a system that I can use to teach my children what I was taught at a young age (before I was capable of thinking critically) without making me feel like I was brainwashing them.
I’m glad that you skipped over the concepts of plausibility and evidence because that would have thrown a monkey wrench into the teachings of logic to my impressionable youngsters.
Keep up the great work!
God bless!
14 • qazi • April 18, 2010 • 1:35 PM
dear,
i want to attract children,s attention towards thinking because our children learn faith so they forget to use their brain. i need simple and easy fallacies to teach the children how to use their brain.
increase their thinking power.
farhat ali