I was recently on a hunt in my local Barnes & Noble for some logic books to use with some of the children that I am seeing this summer. I did not think this search would be difficult; I know that these type of exercises exist as I have been finding piecemeal tidbits in different teacher resources. I was hoping to find a complete resource that was differentiated that I could pull from when appropriate for my learners.
I could not find a single book on the subject. Now, maybe it was the particular branch I was in, who knows. But do you know what I did find? TONS of texts of drilling practice and curriculum hints and tricks for Common Core and grade level testing. It made me a bit frustrated, and to be quite honest, angry. There were a few parents in the education section with me, accompanied by their children. They were purchasing some of these exercise workbooks, and would turn to their children asking, “Does this look familiar to you? Did you cover this in your class?” while their children looked either bored to tears or thrilled (sarcasm) to be faced with ditto fun with the parental units.
Please know that I am all for keeping skills sharp over the summer to make sure that summer slide is minimized. However, in my opinion, parents should not be faced with supplementing or even covering curriculum at home. It made me sad that instead of being able to share well loved and new, exciting literature with their children (and you can cover “common core standards” with traditional texts), mothers and fathers were pouring over short passages in workbooks with inappropriately leveled literature for their children.
I’m still on the hunt for some logic resources, however I have the suspicion that I may be creating my own treasure trove of resources on my own.