Welcome to Thinking To Learn^®

Parents, tutors and home schooling families understand the importance of guiding children to develop and strengthen the tools they need for the 21st century - critical thinking and critical reading skills, problem-solving, creativity, logic and reasoning.  Learning is improved when children are taught how to think within the context of their learning.  Developing key cognitive skills results in deeper learning and academic success.  We're glad to welcome you to our site where you'll find information and exceptional, award-winning resources to help you engage your children in developing skills considered important for school success.

Gifted Testing, Achievement Testing, State Assessments.

Also important are resources that provide children with opportunities to strengthen and practice  the reasoning skills assessed on a wide-range of intelligence and cognitive assessments used to identify giftedness or grant access to gifted programs in the schools, or alternatively to identify the need for academic support services.  Use the "test prep" icon below to access a table of information about some of the common assessments and recommended resources. 

Quick Links to Common Searches:

Here are a few quick links to help you with our most common searches:

As a small, personal company, we are happy to provide you support and answer your questions and inquiries.  We offer parent coaching and support services for those who would like assistance in targeting resources to the specific needs and abilities of their children.  We provide these services by appointment.  Don't hesitate to contact us if you would like to schedule with us.

What Makes These Resources Special? 

• core cognitive skills and core content

• easy for parents to use with children at home or through tutors

• loved by children - engaging, challenging, and fun

• develop key thinking skills and strategies

• provide introduction, practice, and development in using similarities and differences, classification, pattern, series, analogies, and deductive reasoning.  Several resources also provide activities that improve both figural and verbal reasoning.  

• are frequently recommended and used for test preparation and practice for GATE tests such as: CogAT, NNAT, OLSAT and for a variety of standardized assessments like ITBS, FCAT, TAKS, etc.

• develop reading comprehension, mathematical reasoning, and problem-solving skills

• provide the right kind of challenge for students needing more higher order thinking skills and less of 'more of the same' - are used in Gifted/Talented, High Potential programs and at home as supplemental challenge work

• are excellent source for parent and home school use to teach core content, to extend school-based learning, to develop cognitive skills and those of the critical thinker

• are considered exceptional resources for the preschooler, preschool program, and parent interested in playing a role in the cognitive development and school readiness of young children.

Free Sample Activity Pages and additional information are available online at our shopping cart.

Easy-To-Use  Most important, is that every resource has been designed with the parent and child in mind.  And, they have been in use in homes, small groups, and classrooms for a long, long time.  Our passion is to assist parents, like ourselves, to access these resources and to find the support you'll need as you implement them at home. 

Frequently Requested Resources  The most frequently requested information is for resources to prepare for a variety of assessments.  You'll find our page with links to both resources and tests on the assessments page, such as the Naglieri (NNAT), OLSAT (Otis-Lennon), or CogAT (Cognitive Abilities Test), and more.

Gifted and Talented Information  If you have gifted and talented children, please visit our resource links page for links to worthwhile websites that have been a great help to our family and to many others.

Preschool/Early Learning  Parents of preschool children will be pleased to find the resources we commend to you on these pages.  They will give you both a way to engage with your children to make a difference in their preparedness for school, as well as to provide the foundational skills they need to spur their cognitive development.

Children love these resources and they ask for more!  We often describe them as the "Can we do MORE, Mom? books"  because of our son's requests that we do "just one more" rather than move on to another activity. Over the years, we've heard from other parents that their children have responded in similar ways. 

The Right Kind of Challenge  The resources we recommend have children doing 'weight-lifting for the brain'.  Exceptional skills are built that are, frankly, just not found in other curriculum or supplemental materials.  Your children will benefit by the growth they will do.  We believe you'll find, as we did, that your thinking and reasoning skills, along with other content knowledge, improve as well! 

We hope you'll strongly consider giving your children the opportunity to experience some of the resources we recommend, so that they can improve their thinking, learn to meet challenge, and do some "mind-full" learning.

Great for Supplementation and Summer Time Fun!   Some of the resources we recommend are particularly good for supplementing in-school learning and for summer fun or bridge work.   You can browse our online catalog by grade level, assessment test, and content/subject area or search through other key words.

Homeschoolers will find our summer selection a nice break from their regular curriculum.  We encourage you to take advantage of your summer break time to build some of these skills in your children.  Sandee, Head Teacher in our home, is also available to coach and guide homeschoolers who would appreciate more in-depth, detailed advice related to these resources, homeschooling a high ability student, and homeschool planning in general.   Contact her to set up your appointment.

Beyond "More of the Same"  to "Higher-Order Thinking Skills" - If your children are tired of the "same-old, same-old" found at the school book fair, or the "more of the same" work sent home as summer bridge work, consider these resource offerings as a way to freshen up and strengthen your child's learning while building new skills considered essential for school success. 

Home Educating curriculum or supplementation  As a home educating family, we are pleased to encourage other home educators to consider these resources designated as core curriculum as well as the supplemental materials.  Many materials we offer are award-winning, and recommended by well-known and respected individuals within home education, like Cathy Duffy and the author of The Well-Trained Mind, Susan Wise-Bauer.  Our family has personally experienced the benefits of using many of the resources we now recommend to you, which is a big part of why we chose to represent them to other parents.  Please don't hesitate to call on us if you'd like to learn more about how to implement them in your home school.

Why We Do This   Our passion is to encourage and assist all parents in engaging in their children's education in meaningful ways.  We benefited from the help and direction some caring parents gave us years ago.  We want to share the same encouragement with parents who desire to learn about worthwhile resources that will benefit their children.  You, as a parent, can make a significant difference in your child's future. You are on the right path!  We look forward to working with you and your family.

Can't find what you need?   If you have difficulty locating information you believe should be on this website, or experience difficulty using this site, please call on us or email us.  We are happy to assist you. 

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