Flexible & Critical Thinking Foundations | Grades 3–6

A complete 10-week critical, creative, and flexible thinking program with teacher lesson plans, student-facing slides, assessment tools, and a student thinking portfolio.

Build stronger thinkers, better questioners and more confident problem-solvers with this complete 10-week critical and creative thinking skills program for Grades 3–6 / Years 3–6.

This ready-to-teach program includes complete lesson plans, student-facing slides, an open-ended Student Thinking Portfolio, assessment tools and a 5-page international Curriculum Connections Guide supporting curriculum links across Australia, the United States and England.

Everything needed to teach the complete 10-week program is included. No additional resources are required.

Unit 1 brings together selected MindStretch thinking activities within a new, structured 10-week teaching sequence, supported by complete lesson plans, student-facing slides, assessment tools, a Student Thinking Portfolio and curriculum connections.

Some activities are adapted from existing MindStretch resources. Teachers who already own these resources will find that the Unit 1 Program adds the complete teaching sequence, program structure, student portfolio, assessment framework and supporting materials needed to deliver them as part of a progressive thinking skills program.

Already own some MindStretch resources?

Check the product preview for a complete list of resources that have contributed selected activities to Unit 1.

MindStretch Thinking Skills Program – Unit 1:

Flexible & Critical Thinking Foundations provides teachers with a structured, easy-to-follow sequence of lessons designed to develop flexible thinking, critical thinking, perspective-taking, questioning, evaluation, problem-solving, and reflection.

Rather than completing disconnected critical thinking activities, students build their thinking skills progressively across the unit. Each lesson introduces or strengthens a specific thinking skill before students apply it through discussion, open-ended challenges, visual thinking routines, and reflection.

Students are encouraged to explore possibilities, challenge assumptions, consider different perspectives, evaluate ideas, justify decisions, improve solutions, and reflect on how their thinking changes over time.

There are no single correct answers. The focus is on the quality, flexibility, and depth of student thinking.

What’s Included?

This complete program includes four coordinated components:

1. Program Overview & Lesson Plans

A teacher-friendly program guide containing:

• Program overview and teaching approach
• 10-week scope and sequence
• Unit learning outcomes
• Weekly lesson plans
• Learning intentions and success criteria
• Warm-up discussion prompts
• Step-by-step lesson sequences
• Reflection questions
• Teacher focus notes
• “Teacher Looks For” guidance
• Assessment overview
• Thinking skills progression rubric
• Student self-assessment support
• Curriculum connections

2. Student-Facing Lesson Slides

Ready-to-display lesson pages support each stage of the program and include:

• Learning intentions
• Success criteria
• Visual warm-ups
• Discussion prompts
• Open-ended thinking challenges
• THINK, EVALUATE, and CREATE prompts
• Reflection questions
• Thinking showcase guidance

Display the slides and follow the corresponding lesson plan—no need to build your own weekly presentations.

3. Student Thinking Portfolio

Students document their growth as thinkers throughout the unit using:

• Personal thinking goals
• Open-ended Thinking Canvases
• Thinking Snapshots
• THINK, EVALUATE, and CREATE reflection
• Thinking Toolbox
• Thinking vocabulary tracking
• Halfway reflection
• Progress tracking
• Showcase planning
• End-of-unit reflection
• Student self-assessment

Students can make their thinking visible through writing, sketches, diagrams, mind maps, lists, questions, flowcharts, annotations, tables, or their own representation methods.

4. Curriculum Connections Guide

A concise 5-page curriculum connections guide shows how the program supports key curriculum priorities and learning areas across three international contexts:

• Australian Curriculum Version 9.0
• United States standards and frameworks, including Common Core ELA, NGSS and the C3 Framework
• National Curriculum in England

The guide includes:

• An at-a-glance lesson alignment overview
• Key Australian Curriculum learning area and General Capability connections
• Selected curriculum and standards codes
• United States standards and framework connections
• National Curriculum in England connections
• Future-ready skills and transferable capability links

The guide is designed to help classroom teachers, gifted education teachers and enrichment coordinators clearly connect the program's thinking skills to broader curriculum priorities.

Skills Developed

Across the 10-week program, students learn to:

• Explore multiple possibilities
• Think flexibly
• Consider different perspectives
• Ask meaningful questions
• Identify and challenge assumptions
• Recognise missing information
• Analyse and evaluate ideas
• Compare multiple viewpoints
• Justify decisions with reasoning
• Generate alternative solutions
• Improve existing ideas
• Apply thinking strategies to open-ended challenges
• Reflect on their growth as thinkers

The MindStretch Thinking Framework

Throughout the program, students use three connected areas of thinking:

THINK – Explore ideas, possibilities, questions, perspectives, and assumptions.

EVALUATE – Analyse information, compare viewpoints, examine evidence, and justify decisions.

CREATE – Generate possibilities, improve ideas, design solutions, and apply thinking to open-ended challenges.

Students revisit these areas throughout the program so that thinking strategies become increasingly independent and transferable.

Who Is This Program For?

This resource is ideal for:

• Grades 3–6 / Years 3–6
• Gifted and talented education
• High-potential learner programs
• Enrichment groups
• Extension programs
• Pull-out or withdrawal groups
• Critical thinking classes
• Creative thinking programs
• Whole-class thinking skills instruction
• Advanced learners
• Mixed-ability classrooms needing open-ended differentiation
• Homeschool enrichment

Because the challenges are open-ended, students can respond at different levels of complexity while working from the same task.

Flexible Classroom Use

The program is designed for one lesson per week across approximately 10 weeks, making it ideal for a school term or quarter.

Most lessons are designed for approximately 45–60 minutes, with flexibility to extend discussion or split activities across shorter sessions.

Use the program as:

• A complete 10-week thinking skills unit
• A gifted education or enrichment program
• A weekly critical thinking lesson
• A small-group extension program
• A whole-class thinking skills sequence
• A pull-out or withdrawal program

Low Prep, High-Level Thinking

No specialist knowledge of gifted education or thinking skills instruction is required.

Teachers can simply:

1. Follow the weekly lesson plan.
2. Display the corresponding student-facing slides.
3. Facilitate discussion and the thinking challenge.
4. Allow students to record their thinking in the portfolio.
5. Use reflection and assessment tools to track growth over time.

The program provides the structure. Students provide the thinking.

Why Teachers Will Love It

This program is designed to help teachers move beyond one-off “brain teaser” activities and teach thinking skills through a purposeful, progressive sequence.

Students are not rewarded simply for reaching an answer. They are encouraged to ask better questions, explore alternatives, explain reasoning, reconsider first ideas, listen to other perspectives, and reflect on how their thinking develops.

With the teaching sequence, student materials, assessment tools and curriculum connections already organised, teachers can focus on facilitating rich discussion and responding to student thinking rather than planning the program from scratch.

Strengthen & Extend

Selected activities in this program are adapted from existing MindStretch resources and placed within a structured 10-week learning progression.

The complete program adds the instructional sequence, weekly lesson plans, learning intentions and success criteria, student-facing slides, Student Thinking Portfolio, assessment tools and curriculum connections.

For teachers who would like to extend learning beyond the 10-week program, full standalone versions of selected activities are available separately. These include additional activities, teaching support, extension opportunities and flexible implementation options.

Already own some of the individual MindStretch resources?

Unit 1 provides a different layer of value by organising selected activities into a complete, progressive teaching program with dedicated instructional, assessment and student portfolio materials.

Stronger Thinkers. Better Questions. Greater Ideas.