Thinking Skills Courses
Enriching thinking skills and developing a multifaceted thinking acumen in young minds
Courses For 5-8 Years Old/Grades K-2
The beginner thinking course series engages children in a variety of thinking exercises primarily through play based learning activities. We expose children to a variety of problem domains, encourage them to try more than one method, to apply their learning, and knowledge, to persist & persevere in problem solving in our fun filled, highly interactive & innovative classrooms.
45 minutes per class – 8 classes per session
once a week for 8 weeks or twice a week for 4 weeks
Live Session Format: Here is a representative flow of the live class:
- Interactive, teacher driven lesson time using multimedia content – 10-15 minutes
- Hands on activities, exercises, games – 15-20 minutes
- Discussions, review and wrap up – 10 minutes
Children learn, infer, and apply logic to solve a variety of arithmetic, visual discrimination, spatial thinking, patterns, sequence puzzles. They discuss & reason out correctness of their solutions while having fun problem solving, & playing with friends.
Children understand, and analyze stories and characters, identify connections, relationships, and make inferences. They engage in a variety of interactive story, picture, and word based analytical thinking activities with peers
Magic unfolds when children remember, apply, and build upon their classroom subject learning, life skills learning, and learning from play – we witness their higher order thinking in action – solving newer, harder problems in new & better way
Children engage and develop their critical thinking skills by understanding and evaluating their play choices and strategies. They list pros and cons, engage in would you rather.., what would you do when.., type thinking exercises while having fun playing board games with friends, and reflecting on personal experiences in class.
Children engage in fun, interactive & guided creative thinking, exploration, and experimentation activities like – create a bridge with any 5 blocks, dress up your doll in 3 colors using 5 accessories, come up with 5 names for a pet cat, draw a cartoon of a smiling kid walking a grumpy dog in each class, winging their imaginations and problem solving skills.
Introducing computational thinking – children delve into simple tasks such as baking a cookie, finding largest among given numbers, sorting/categorizing things – listing out the sequence of steps, inputs, conditions to check for, and the result/output as algorithms for a computer to perform the task at hand.
Children engage in a variety of thinking skill exercises & activities stretching and building their thinking acumen, in multiple dimensions. Children learn and practice various skills in a well planned manner building upon and complimenting their previously mastered methods in this fun combo class.
Courses For 8-11 Years Old/Grades 3-5
The intermediate and upper elementary courses emphasize deeper and broader thinking. Students work on thinking exercises in new domains such as fairy tales, poetic thinking, abstract thinking, board game design, and more, stretching their imagination and thinking aptitude. Children have fun solving problems, learning, mastering, and innovating new methods to problem solve, while interacting with peers in our highly engaging multi-age group classrooms.
55 minutes per class – 8 classes per session
Once a week for 8 weeks or twice a week for 4 weeks
Live Session Format: Here is a representative flow of the live class:
- Interactive teacher led lesson introducing problems, strategies & methods -10-15 minutes
- Hands on activities, exercises, games – 20 – 30 minutes
- Discussions, review and wrap up – 10 -15 minutes
Students learn strategies, methods, tips, and tricks to solve different types of logic puzzles and problems based on math, science, other subjects, and generic concepts. They use clues, elimination, and deductive reasoning & engage in real world problem solving in this fun & interactive class
Learners read, analyze, predict, recreate, compare, debate, and discuss fairy tales applying, and strengthening their critical thinking skills. Children engage in this fun, interactive, and novel critical thinking exercise with enthusiasm.
Children master the art of separating an object from its qualities, generalizing – finding underlying patterns and structures, and thinking in symbols using math and English language arts concepts
This cross-curricular enrichment course engages children in a variety of higher-order thinking tasks. Students complete activities in which they assemble, deduce, hypothesize, persuade, and imagine in the context of math, language arts, science, and social studies.
Students delve deeper into the game of chess, by solving puzzles, and playing analyzing games. Children evaluate and analyze moves and motives, develop winning strategies, engaging their critical thinking muscles while having fun with chess & peers
Students read, analyze, write, & mess with poems in fun and creative ways while engaging our poetic skills & the 4C’s- creativity, critical thinking, collaboration and communication. Our budding poets love the exercises and interactions in this course
Students dig deeper into computational thinking by solving complex tasks computationally – learning to write algorithms, decompose problems, recognize patterns & create abstractions.
Children create and problem solve in the context of board & digital games – they engage in fun and creative activities like changing game rules, making changes & creating new boards, coming up with game manuals, and guides
A broad course that engages a mix of all thinking skills in the context of age-appropriate, transdisciplinary learning themes
Courses For 11-14 Years Old/Grades 6-8
The middle school courses emphasize exposure to more problem domains and different kinds of problems beyond what youngsters learn in school. The intent is to develop multi dimensional thinking, and real world problem solving. As youngsters become masters in logical, analytical, and creative thinking skill concepts, they begin to comprehend how human dynamics bring a whole new dimension to problem solving.
55 minutes per class – 8 classes per session
Once a week for 8 weeks or twice a week for 4 weeks
Live Session Format: Here is a representative flow of the live class:
- Interactive teacher led lesson introducing problems, strategies & methods -10-15 minutes
- Hands on activities, exercises, games – 20 – 30 minutes
- Discussions, review and wrap up – 10 -15 minutes
We stretch our logical thinking abilities solving complex multi-dimensional problems – we learn many methods, and solve problems figuring what methods to apply, and in what order, on our own – each problem is different
We learn the art, science, and math of secret messaging from the good old days of pigeon messengers to modern day instant messengers. Students learn basics of cryptography, its applications, and exercise their thinking skills in decoding ciphers, and creating their own
We revisit concepts from History and Geography in a whole new way in this fun and refreshing class. We apply, analyze, evaluate, synthesize, and problem solve, real world scenarios, applications, & projects.
We stir our creativity while engaging in abstract art. We study abstract art forms, methods, and practice expressing our ideas, imaginations, thoughts, & feelings in art.
This novel course enriches the critical thinking prowess, of middle school students as they engage in critical analysis of video games, and problem solving exercises in video game design. We evaluate the themes, user experience, game strategy, rules and levels, strengths, and flaws, critically in this engaging class.
We have fun digging deeper with algorithms and logic. We engage in decomposition, abstraction, pattern recognition skills, solving harder problems computationally.
We introduce design thinking concepts, evaluate a few digital applications, and learning aids from a design thinking point of view. We engage in product and solution design, for simple problems in our immediate context, developing empathy, and user understanding.
We engage youngsters in various thinking activities from a broad spectrum of domains, learning, and applying new methods, building a multifaceted thinking acumen
Thinking Skills Courses For Ages 14 Plus / Grades 9-12
The high school thinking courses emphasize meta cognition, collaborative thinking, design, and system thinking aspects. High school students stretch and flex their creative and critical thinking muscles in real world problem solving & decision making contexts involving human and system dynamics.
55 minutes per class – 8 classes per session
Once a week for 8 weeks or twice a week for 4 weeks
Live Session Format: Here is a representative flow of the live class:
- Interactive teacher led lesson introducing problems, strategies & methods -10-15 minutes
- Hands on activities, exercises, games – 20 – 30 minutes
- Discussions, review and wrap up – 10 -15 minutes
Students engage in solving problems and logical reasoning, interacting with peers, applying concepts, learned in Math & Computer Science. Youngsters play with inductions, deductions, boolean algebra, number systems, DeMorgan’s laws, and more, in this out of the box thinking class.
Young people draw inspiration, discuss habits for nurturing creativity, and life stories of creative geniuses from different domains & different times. We ideate, imagine, & innovate as we engage in fun and inspiring activities with peers, and surprise ourselves & others with what comes out.
Young people enrich their critical thinking abilities by engaging in deep dive processing of arguments, claims, conditionals, & logic. Students practice non-deductive reasoning, effective decision making, debating, and critical writing, synthesizing varied information, dealing with ambiguity, and bringing together all the skills in problem solving & their craft.
We introduce aspects of systems thinking as youngsters learn with simple and complex systems in their immediate context. Students collaboratively engage in hands on system thinking projects, developing greater understanding of the various parts of a system, their inter-dependencies, and the delicate art of creating a well-balanced system
Young students dig deeper into product design of various forms (physical, virtual, and mixed) and enrich their product development, empathy, and user understanding skills.
In this advanced computational thinking course, students delve into algorithmic efficiency and scalability, analyze and develop their own advanced algorithms. Further they advance debugging, abstracting, decomposing, and pattern recognition skills, while interacting, and brainstorming with peers.
