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10 Critical Thinking Games For Your Students

Critical thinking games engage students in active problem-solving and decision-making processes that strengthen multiple cognitive skills simultaneously. This week, we’re sharing ten fabulous finds that offer short games (about 5 minutes) for all grades. To learn more about critical thinking tools and how to integrate them into your lessons, don’t miss our upcoming OK2Ask Tech Tools Smackdown—keep reading for more details!

Grades 3-9

The Purring Test

The Purring Test began from a question: "What would playing Pictionary with an AI be like?" The game challenges students with quirky associations and unexpected twists to help them understand different types of minds—and the outcome is usually hilarious!

Grades 4-12

Connections

Create personalized, custom versions of the New York Times's game Connections using vocabulary words or terms related to your current unit of study. Players divide a 16-word grid into four categories by finding four words that share something in common.

Grades 5-12

Wordsmith

Challenge yourself and your students with this fast-paced word puzzle game. Use the provided letters to create as many words as possible in two minutes. Longer words will get a higher score. Click the tab for more letters if you get stuck!

Grades 3-12

Wordle

Wordle is a deceptively easy-looking word game that promotes problem-solving skills. Identify a five-letter word in five guesses or less. Letters in the correct place turn green while yellow letters mean you have the right letter in the wrong place.

Grades 2-12

Brain Teasers and Puzzles

Select from fifteen puzzles divided into three categories: Math and Logic, Language and Visual, and Other. Brain teasers are sorted from lowest to highest difficulty level.

Grades 4-12

5 Minute Mystery

This mystery reading game helps increase critical thinking skills in an innovative way. After reading a mystery, you select which sentences contain clues, then choose the clues that either exonerate or implicate a suspect.

Grades 3-12

Oh h1

Oh h1 is an addicting and challenging interactive activity for problem-solving and logic. Choose from four different grid sizes to play. Click on squares to make them red or blue. The goal is to have equal blue and red squares on each line.

Grades 1-4

Odd Squad

Join the squad as an agent and use reasoning and math skills to "put things right again." The interactive activities strengthen critical thinking skills and include a variety of difficulty levels to allow you to differentiate for each student.

Grades K-12

Gridlock Buster

Become a member of Traffic Team Alpha and get cars through intersections as quickly as possible by controlling traffic lights. Move up to more congested intersections and improve your problem-solving skills as you complete each mission.

Grades K-12

Which One Doesn't Belong?

Which One Doesn't Belong provides stimulating and challenging puzzles related to shapes, numbers, graphs, expressions, photos, incomplete sets, and more. Each puzzle has multiple possible answers.

This Week at TeachersFirst

We’re excited to invite you to attend our winter OK2Ask virtual workshops! Read about two upcoming workshops, including a Tech Tools Smackdown exploring some of the critical thinking resources in this update. We’re also sharing a blog post about thinking routines.