How to Use The Thinking Toolbox in a Homeschool

(Some of this page is taken from the introduction to The Thinking Toolbox.)

We hope this book is so easy to use that we don’t need to explain anything. But we suspect our printer may secretly fill these pages with incredibly boring stuff on logic, instead of the gripping mystery this book should contain. So here are a few hints on how to use our book to learn logic, just in case this happens.

The Thinking Toolbox is for anyone aged thirteen through adult. Our previous book, The Fallacy Detective, is an easy start to logic. We wrote both books to work well together.

What Is the Lesson Format?

You can read this book by yourself, or you can read it with others. Many students say it helps to talk with other students about logic. There is something about logic discussions that can expand our mind and answer questions. But a group setting is not required.

Each lesson ends with exercises. Each exercise builds on previous exercises, so don’t wait until the end of the lesson to check your answers. Check as you go. This way, you will know if you are misunderstanding something.

If you don’t understand something in a lesson, do the exercises anyway. We designed them to be teaching tools. You may catch something in the exercises that you didn’t understand while reading. If you still don’t understand, repeat the lesson. You can also discuss your difficulties with someone else.

This book is a springboard to larger projects. For students, larger projects may include a science fair experiment, a history research paper, or starting a small business selling snails. Adults may wish to use the thinking tools in this book to solve problems like motivating their children to sell lemonade instead of snails. Whatever you do, don’t simply read this book and then forget about these tools.

We thought we would close with an inspiring challenge to battle the forces of bad reasoning. But instead, we will suggest you read the first lesson.

You may find more ideas at How to Use The Thinking Toolbox in a Classroom.

Comments

1 • kelton • September 25, 2009 • 3:09 PM

first commenter!!
Anyway I love your work