There Will Be A $5.00 Charge For Whining: Critical Thinking Detective: Vocabulary (A Homeschool Review Crew Post)

We are big fan of mysteries in this house. At least, solvable mysteries. In fact, some of Josiah’s favorite books when he was little involved a very young detective. I, myself, can’t get enough of the genre. Another thing Josiah has always loved are words. Big words. Little words. Strange words. Made-up words. I realize that sounds rather odd for a boy who is dyslexic…but he loves to know what things mean. We just got to review a product that is a great mash-up of both those things… Critical Thinking Detective: Vocabulary by The Critical Thinking Co.™

Each lesson contains a mystery. The activities contain 18-25 vocabulary words pertaining to the mystery, itself. The word will either point directly to the suspect or exonerate the witnesses. The student considers the evidence and applies critical thinking skills to the problem at hand.

Critical Thinking Detective™ – Vocabulary Book 1

The name of the game is to solve the mystery.

In addition to solving the mystery, the student will work through an activity that uses the words in other ways. The words are challenging, but perfectly manageable.

Each lesson is set up as a mystery that you have to solve and includes 18-25 new vocabulary words. In order to solve the mystery you have to understand that new vocabulary words that are used the story. You are given a paragraph or two of background information that includes some of the vocabulary words and then below that you have pictures and statements from four different suspects.

This is such a fun product! I, personally, have always enjoyed logic puzzles and have found the more I exercise my brain by working them…easier they come.

Josiah and I did work through these together. The book, itself, is not the big and would be a great summer project to tackle. It is intended for grades 5-12 (Josiah is 16 this year), but this momma had a good time solving some crime!

This is how we did it. I had Josiah read through the case initially. Then I would go back through with him and we would highlight the vocabulary words together. I asked Josiah what he thought each word meant before looking it up in a dictionary. Actually, I let Josiah use his online dictionary.

He does have a fantastic grasp on words in general so he didn’t use his dictionary as often as I anticipated. I also let him make a “gut guess” about who he thought was guilty. It’s a good thing the boy isn’t one of our local police detectives.

All of y’all are guilty!

We then began going through the statements of each suspect and eliminating based on what we knew or surmised.

So. Much. Fun.

And challenging. Don’t let your youngin’ give up! These kinds of problem solving skills are vital to have.

Josiah used the review page that followed the mystery as an independent project. There is an answer key with an explanation which was invaluable for me him. Sometimes my his brain gets foggy.

This is a keeper! And one I would recommend wholeheartedly. This isn’t the first time we’ve gotten to review products by The Critical Thinking Co.™. I have had a chance to use And this time around members of the Crew got to review several different books. I personally have my eye on Something's Fishy at Lake Iwannafisha.

And the company has some great deals right now…just for you!

As an added bonus you can get Free Critical Thinking Puzzles!

A $75 Value! Delivered weekly to your inbox. Choose PreK – Grade 8. Sign Up Now!

https://www.criticalthinking.com/toscrew and use the coupon code TOSCREW18 for free shipping and 15 % off.

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