Logic Liftoff, Grades 4-6

My homeschooler recently finished this, after having done all the books in the series up to this point, and is about to start the last book in the series ("Orbiting with Logic").The series does give students some very basic exposure to "logic" in the sense of "logic puzzles" and analogies and problems of the sort that test analytical ability on standardized tests like the SAT. That's useful. I'd love to see some studies showing that it has any effect whatsoever on logical thinking ability, however. I'm a bit skeptical of that, but I think that's so important that I had my student do it anyway.As a former college teacher of intro logic or critical thinking, I also appreciated the fact that the books after around the 2nd or 3rd grade level start very gently introducing concepts from actual formal logic. With the this particular subseries (the going-into-space subseries) there's actually an effort to introduce things like syllogisms, validity, and logical terms such as 'if-then', 'and', and 'or'. I feel like my student will be able to move into a real (albeit still very basic) introductory logic text after going through the whole series.My main concerns about this series of books concern uneven quality. A little too frequently, the answer is objectively unclear; when the content enters the realm of actual logic, I found any number of unacceptably vague or outright erroneous explanations or problems. This could probably use a going-over by an actual logician and then I'd be giving it four stars or something.My other concern is about the dubious value of the sort of exercises the student is asked to do. Logic concerns reasoning, so I would have expected to see more, you know, reasoning, real world reasoning with real problems. As it is, apart from the sections that actually concern formal logic, this is more of a set of diverting and not useless mental exercises, but those exercises no more teach logic, or the standards of correct reasoning, than the study of math, programming, foreign language, or grammar do.

Using this homeschooling for my fourth grader, he gets to choose what order he does his assignments each day and he usually chooses this. Word analogies, identifying relationships, and logic puzzles stories are all included. Each type of puzzle takes some explanation and guidance, but once he gets it he can usually complete the five or seven remaining puzzles of that type without assistance. He's developing skills that will hopefully be very useful for him later in school and life.

This is a great workbook. I love that it provides teacher instructions/explanations of the various logic lessons. However, it is advertised appropriate for 4th - 6th. In my experience, most 4th graders, and possibly some 5th would struggle to have the vocab mastery needed to independently complete the exercises. If teacher or parent is able to work one on-one with the child, this would serve as a great combo logic-vocab lesson for 4-5th. I would not expect a 4th grader to be able to complete these exercises independently, even after the base lesson has been offered.

This is an excellent way to teach your children some logic fundamentals. I specialized in logic at the university level and these were a great refresher for me as well (keep in mind however, that I'm not a very bright adult). Many of the other "logic" books out there will mix in things like word searches, which do nothing whatsoever to teach logic. I find that to be personally illogical (hardy har). But seriously, these books are all killer no filler.

A useful classroom resource for teaching logic. I would recommend this to use for at least a basis in creating activities.

Bought this to use with my math-loving 3rd grader. Works well for him, and I think any bright kid from 7yo on up can benefit from this. It has a nice variation of puzzles, though with only a brief explanation at the end - assuming you can figure out the answers and explain them yourself, this is a great tool!

My son has throughly enjoyed these books and will be quite excited when I tell him there is still one more in the series.As a homeschool mom, I like adding this in w his weekly work. Not only does he look forward to doing it but he's learning great skills along the way.

As a homeschool mom, I noticed my kids weren't getting enough opportunities to grow their logical minds. I really like this series of logic problems. In this book there are different kinds of problems from patterning,, relationships, sequencing, syllogisms, deduction...and more. I am using it with my high 4th grader and my average 6th grader together.

Good but I would expect harder problems....