Brain Teasers!: Over 180 Quick Activities & Worksheets That Make Kids THINK [Paperback]

Susan S. Petreshene (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: June 15, 1994 | ISBN-10: 0876281234 | ISBN-13: 978-0876281239 | Edition: 1

Nearly 200 "quickie" classroom activities and reproducible worksheets to develop the thinking, reasoning and memory skills of elementary students and help them master both basic and advanced concepts in math, language and writing. Ideal ways to get kids involved, vary instruction, fill spare minutes, introduce or reinforce specific skills/concepts, and assign as homework.

Editorial Reviews

From the Back Cover

For all K-6 teachers, here are nearly 200 exciting "quickie" classroom activities and reproducible worksheets to develop the thinking, reasoning, and memory skills of your elementary students and help them master both basic and advanced concepts in math, language, and writing.

Each activity or reproducible takes just 5 to 15 minutes and requires no prior preparation— all you need are simple materials such as paper and pencil or chalk and chalkboard. Simply open this valuable resource to find an appropriate activity in one of these four major skills and subject areas:

Thinking and reasoning
Students develop their thinking and problem-solving skills with 48 activities and worksheets that ask them to classify and categorize objects, make decisions for story characters faced with a dilemma, place events in logical sequence, create flowcharts, and find hidden analogies between words.

Math
Here you get 73 activities and worksheets such as "Magic 4," a mischievous math trick that gives students practice in addition, subtraction, and division. Other activities use games, memory challenges, and logic problems to teach such important concepts as estimation, decimals, computation, relationships and patterns, place value, odd/even coordinates and graphs, money, and geometry.

Language and writing
65 enjoyable word games, listening exercises, puzzles, add-on stories, and anagrams give students valuable practice in phonics, spelling, vocabulary, rhymes, compound words, and different parts of speech. For example, "Synonyms with Style" helps students stretch their vocabulary as they replace commonly used words with "stylish" synonyms.

Listening and remembering
Here you'll find 7 classroom activities that use body movement, mazes, and repetition to help students develop skills in critical listening, following oral directions, and memory. For example, "Can You Add to My Sentence?" involves students in creative thinking and memorization as they take turns adding words onto a phrase (after repeating everything that came before) until it becomes a long story.

Better still, you'll find the 82 full-page worksheets can be copied at a moment's notice for instant handout assignments. And to help you quickly select appropriate activities and worksheets for individual and group needs, a special Activity/Skills Index lists all of the activities and reproducibles by subject matter, group size, and grade level.

With Brain Teasers! Spare minutes become prime learning time. You'll turn to it every day to stimulate, reinforce, and expand the thinking skills of all your students!

About the Author

Susan S. Petreshene, M.A. (California State University, Sonoma), served as an elementary classroom teacher for over 20 years in the public schools of Concord and Novato, California. She authored many articles in professional journals such as Instructor and also wrote six practical books for teachers, including Mind Joggers! (The Center for Applied Research in Education) and Teaching Reading Skills: Visual Auditory and Kinesthetic Activities (Zaner-Bloser), co-authored with Walter B. Barbe, Ph.D.

Product Details

• Paperback: 265 pages
• Publisher: Jossey-Bass; 1 edition (June 15, 1994)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0876281234
• ISBN-13: 978-0876281239
• Product Dimensions: 10.8 x 8.2 x 0.9 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.8 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.2 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (4 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #870,235 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

15 of 15 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars GREAT extra work, March 24, 2000

By 

Barbara Gonzales (usa) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Brain Teasers!: Over 180 Quick Activities & Worksheets That Make Kids THINK (Paperback)

I copied different pages with 9th graders, and they REALLY enjoyed doing the problems. They did this after a test or when they had finished their assignment. I am a substitute teacher and this is a GREAT fill in when all the work is finished. May be used in other grades also.

2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars a must have, January 15, 2007

By 

B. Russell (i'd rather not say) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

Amazon Verified Purchase

This review is from: Brain Teasers!: Over 180 Quick Activities & Worksheets That Make Kids THINK (Paperback)

I've looked at various teaching resources that claim to make kids think and several of them actually do. This one was impressive to me because of the diversity of the activities- it has math, language and general reasoning. It would be appropriate for children as young as first grade. (But perfectly suitable for my 4th graders.) I would recommend this book to any teacher for extension activities.

3.0 out of 5 stars Disappointed, September 13, 2010

By 

William Adams (Redding, CA) - See all my reviews
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Amazon Verified Purchase

This review is from: Brain Teasers!: Over 180 Quick Activities & Worksheets That Make Kids THINK (Paperback)

This was the second Brainteaser book I purchased for my 5th and 6th grade classroom and it does not hold the interest of my students like the first one did.