How To Use Conundrums At Home To Develop Critical Thinking In Kids

o you always believe that there is only one right answer to everything? Well, that's not always the case! Sometimes, there can be more than one answer to a question, and it can be fun to try to figure out those different solutions. Conundrums are a great way to test your thinking skills and see how creative you can be.

You must try Conundrum created by Astro Nova School and Class Dojo with kids. This is a learning series with activities that introduce the challenging idea that not all problems have a clear right answer. Each episode is carefully designed to develop problem-solving and critical thinking skills! 

ClassDojo, a maker of educational software has teamed up with Ad Astra to create "Conundrums," a series of critical thinking problems that will be available to instructors and students, they are designed to promote the sort of critical thinking advocated by Ad Astra.

The Conundrums present students with open-ended critical thinking or ethical questions, which they are encouraged to discuss among themselves and reason out a solution to. They tend to ask more complex and nuanced questions than most elementary and middle school courses do.

Take this Example:

The Tree Conundrum (This one is my son's favorite)

There is this ancient tree called the Novanga tree which grows the best fruits, everyone wants to find out about this tree. The Government wants to clone it, the companies want to buy it and everyone wants to eat some of it but it is owned by only one family who is not interested in sharing their tree.

The family has offered to sell the tree for billions of dollars and even if the Government wants to buy it will take 100 years to grow so what shall be done in this case?

Option A: Pay

Option B: Take Over

Option C: No Action

Option D: Something Else

The Question to discuss here is:

What should happen to the last Novango tree? Why?

This is what my son chose to answer: Something else, Talk to the family and offer them a profit on every fruit that is sold from the tree.

These conundrums put kids in dilemmas where they find very interesting answers to find a solution. Kids must explain where their ideas came from, and their assumptions, produce evidence to support their decisions and bring in their perspectives.

It's a good idea to create conundrums for your child to solve at home, at meals, or during long drives. Try to keep your sentences brief, concise, and thought-provoking. And remember, there may not be a single right answer to every conundrum – encourage your child to explore different ideas and perspectives.

There are many benefits of igniting critical thinking in kids and some of them are listed below: 

- question assumptions

- think creatively

- solve problems more effectively

- make better decisions

- understand complex issues

- see both sides of an issue

- think open-mindedly

Whether at home or in the classroom, conundrums are an excellent way to develop critical thinking skills and help children to explore different perspectives. This way passive video watching can be converted to active learning.

So I created one conundrum for my son from an issue that happened recently:

There is this old tree in our garden, its bending and touching the neighbours window. She has been complaining and wanted it be removed.

We were discussing what we could do in this situation and I thought of using this as a conundrum for my kid.

So I gave him these options:

Option A: Cut the tree

Option B: Don't cut the tree, be ready to fight with the neighbour

Option C: Something else

My son chose to chop the top parts of the tree that was touching her window on a regular basis because he didn't want to cut the tree at the same time didn't want to upset the neighbour.Conundrums like these can helps kids think critically and you will be surprised to see their answers.

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