William O. Schaefer Elementary School second graders are building their creative thinking skills during enrichment lessons featuring analogies.
During a recent visit, Enrichment teacher Robin Courtwright told students in Pamela Bartell and Samantha Cordone’s classroom, “Analogies are puzzles for your brain that are about relationships.”
Analogies are statements that compare and contrast two things that seem like they aren’t related; the challenge is to figure out the relationship. Think: glove is to hand as (sock) is to foot.
Practicing these types of logic puzzles help students sharpen both language and visual spatial reasoning–skills that can be developed and applied to concepts across different content areas.
“Word and picture analogies use the same kind of thinking. Details matter with analogies, but I know that you are not afraid of trickiness!” coached Courtwright. “As you look at these puzzles, have your brain talk to itself: What’s the relationship? What’s the pattern? What’s changing?”