The Art of Asking Questions: How to Develop Critical Thinking in Kids
What do you value more – a good grade or a well written paper? The art of asking questions is one of the most valuable tools we can give children to help them grow into confident, thoughtful, and capable individuals. As parents and tutors, we all want to develop critical thinking in kids, but it doesn’t happen by accident. It starts with curiosity, and curiosity begins with questions. If you have a child in the younger years, you might be hearing a lot of questions already! When kids are encouraged to ask good questions, they begin to understand the world more deeply. This habit leads to better academic performance, stronger relationships, and more independent thinking. The best part? You don’t need a classroom or curriculum to begin. Everyday conversations at the dinner table, in the car, or during tutoring sessions provide rich opportunities to nurture critical thinking. Why Asking Questions Builds Thinking Skills At its core, critical thinking is the ability to process information thoughtfully rather than passively. Children naturally ask questions when they’re curious, but over time, that instinct can fade, often due to pressure to find the “right” answer. The art of asking questions helps kids shift from…
Table Talk Cards Especially for Advent
What does advent look like at your house? Before we talk about the printable Advent conversation starters, let’s talk a little bit about Advent itself. The word advent means coming or arrival. Advent starts the fourth Sunday before Christmas. Traditionally each week has a different theme: hope, peace, joy, and love. Many people have different traditions regarding Christmas and Advent. The purpose of Advent is to help us remain focused on the birth of Jesus Christ and our hope in His glorious return one day. For many, it is a joyful preparation for the Christmas season, a season of great hope. You all know I love to ask questions that get people thinking and talking. I especially love to ask questions around the table! I created Table Talk card sets to be advent conversation starters. Let me introduce my newest card set: Table Talk card set 4 – Especially for Advent. You can use the Table Talk questions at home, on a road trip, on a bus, in the classroom, at a family reunion, in line, on a video call, in carpool, and just about anywhere. Most of these questions do not have a correct answer. I always ask people…
Weekly Meal Planning
Is weekly meal planning too complicated or the lazy way out? Recently, a friend told me that she was too lazy to do weekly meal planning. I told her that I did weekly meal planning WHEN I was too busy or too lazy to think up new foods. For me, it’s a quick way to get 5-6 meals planned out with recipes and a grocery list. I have a few favorite go-to sites that I use and even one that’s vegetarian. On the weekend, I print out a weekly meal plan that includes recipe links and a grocery list (such as this one here). I open my calendar and match up meals to our schedule for the week, crossing out or replacing any that don’t fit our week or our taste buds. I then modify the grocery list to eliminate any items for recipes I’m not using. Lastly, I cross-check the grocery list with my fridge and pantry marking off any items I already have on hand. All that should take less than 15 minutes depending on how many rabbit trails I took when skimming the recipe links or reorganizing my pantry. My kitchen wall holds a menu board that…
Free Table Talk Conversation Starter Questions
Are you more like a pencil or a school bus? I love to ask people conversation starter questions like this one! I have asked it around the dinner table, to help a student prepare for an interview, on an airplane, in line at an amusement park, at gatherings, walking down the beach, and many more places to people both young and old. Mostly I just love to get people thinking and talking. I always ask them to give one reason to support their answer. I have heard plenty of interesting answers, the best being from my daughter who said she was sharp like a pencil but you never knew when she might snap! Why ask conversation starter questions If you think this is just a silly idea, let me explain. Conversation starter questions like this cause one to think about a pencil and then to think about a school bus. Probably floods of memories come when they think about their own experience with buses or lack of experience. Then they have to think about themself and what they want to review or hide about themself when they answer. Next, they have to evaluate both options and analyze the object and…