MiniLUK - Critical Thinking

Today I thought I'd share a little bit about our Critical Thinking Curriculum for this year. It's called the MiniLUK, and we LOVE it. We got the starter pack as well as the Perception Pack 1, Perception Pack 2, and Critical Thinking Pack. There are several different packs that provide different activities as well. I'm not sure I'm going to be able to do justice to it in my description, but I thought I'd try because we have really enjoyed it, and I definitely think it's been a great resource. Also, it is reusable for kid after kid after kid, so while the initial cost might be a bit much, it is cheap to add new books to it if desired, and the best part is that it definitely is something that would last for years in a home school library--there are ZERO consumable parts to it, so everything you buy is a lasting investment. (Provided that they don't get lost or chewed up, of course. Haha.)

The kids love it because it is fun... hands-on, tiles that are easy to hold, and a clever little system of checking your own work so they can do it themselves.

I love it because it is fun--they enjoy doing it, and actually ask to do it outside of school time. Also, it is something they can do themselves. So, while I am focusing on one-on-one time with one child, the other can be working independently on their own. Very rarely do they need my help with this subject, but they are so fun that sometimes we end up doing extras together. 

The idea: A plastic "folder" with grooves for the tiles to sit in. A solid backside, and a clear front side. Each tile has a number (1-12) on it, and on the back of the tile is a color, as seen below. 

 Each page in the book has a different puzzle on it, as well as instructions on what the kids should be doing or looking for in this puzzle (on the middle left), and what the colors on the back of the tile should look like (shown on the middle right) if they solved the problem correctly.

So, for this puzzle below, the child needed to take the 7 tile, and place it on the clear square farthest to the left, because as seen in the clue above the violin, they were solving for the green drawing, not the red. They need to take the 8 tile and place it on the green cat, (not shown), and the 9 tile gets placed on the green moon. And so on, and so forth.

 Then, when all the child's tiles have been placed to solve the puzzle they flip the red plastic piece up to sandwich the tiles between, and flip it over to the clear side to see their color pattern.

 And, if they did the puzzle correctly they should have the same design showing as the answer key in the middle of the page.

Then they open it up again, and turn the tiles over in the red plastic grooved area to start another puzzle. This is just as much fun as the puzzle solving. :-)

 And here's just a few shots of a few different puzzles we've done so far... it was SO HARD to decide what puzzles to take snapshots of, because there are SO MANY cool ones. This is not a representative sampling, by any means. Each puzzle is different, cool, fun, and the kids LOVE opening up the book in the morning to see what puzzles they get to solve for that day.

 Visual Perception--Discriminating Close-ups

 Logic and visual perception-finding the correct halves to each picture, even though they aren't in the same place or whole pieces as above.

 Follow the fishing line from the fisherman to the correct fish.

 Build the train properly--sequencing.

As we've gone on they've definitely gotten more challenging, although I can tell the kids are getting better too. This one above was a stretch at first because you can't see ALL the blocks you're counting, even though they must be there. Now they can do these puzzles perfectly. Since I've taken pictures for this post we've definitely come to some more that have been more difficult, in a good way. Challenging, but also very doable independently with some thought and focus. :-)

 They LOVE getting them right all by themselves. We all have to stop and cheer however many times that happens in a day. Usually it's accompanied by some dance moves. :-)

 Usually while one child and I are working on dictation/reading, the other one does the MiniLUK. Then whoever finishes first gets quality Angry Birds time.

Hey, whatever works. :-)

I definitely am glad that we invested in these puzzles, and I'm going to be looking to complete our set as time goes by. They have been a worthwhile investment for our curriculum inventory.