critical thinking card games

• Skill-Building Cards
• Speaking Topics
• How to Play
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How to Play 52 Essential Critical Thinking Cards

Ways to play, level 1: knowledge-building.

TAKE TURNS DRAWING A CARD COLLECT 15 TO WIN.

"Bias Blitz"

Announce the cognitive bias name on the top of the card. Players shout out the definition based on the name. The first to guess correctly wins the card. If no one does, reveal the definition and return the card to the draw pile.

"Critical Contemplation"

Read the definition and quote on the card without revealing its name. Players take turns naming this cognitive bias. The player with the closest or funniest name wins the card.

LEVEL 2: COMPREHENSION

TAKE TURNS DRAWING A CARD COLLECT 10 TO WIN.

"Cognitive Conquest"

Read the example on the card out loud. Players take turns guessing the bias name and the cognitive assumptions it involves. The player who guesses correctly collects the card.

"Bias Breakdown"

Explain the concept on your card in terms a 5-year-old would understand. If your explanation helps others guess correctly, you collect the card.

LEVEL 3: REAL-WORLD APPLICATION

COLLECT 8 TO WIN.

"Gaslight Gambit"

Place all cards face up. Watch the news or a political debate. The first player to verbally identify a bias being committed collects the card. BONUS: explain why the bias happened.

"Bias Baffle"

Players take turns describing a scenario from their personal or professional life without naming the bias. Player who guesses correctly collects the card.

LEVEL 4: ANALYSIS

"cognitive clash".

Players take turns choosing two cards that either amplify or counteract each other’s effect. Collect the cards if you successfully persuade the other players of your logical reasoning behind the pairing.

"Bias Breakthrough"

To collect a card, explain strategies we can take to mitigate or avoid the bias. Bonus: describe how implementing these strategies could lead to positive changes.

LEVEL 5: EVALUATE

LAY ALL CARDS FACE UP LEAST NUMBER WINS.

"BS Buster"

Review a social media post, ad, or an opinion article. Identify and summarize any sentences that use cognitive bias to persuade you to do or think a certain way. What impact could these have on readers' views or choices?

"Bias Beacon"

Come up with questions that would expose the bias (assumptions, flaw in thinking) in the identified sentences from above.

Take the Implicit Bias Quiz

Coming soon: bonus scenarios..

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7 Games for Critical Thinking that Add Play to Your Day

Let’s talk about the importance of PLAY and games in our classrooms today. Do you agree with the following?

Learning should be fun.

Learning should be engaging.

Learning should be JOYFUL!

I thought so! For children (and adults) play is a key the way the brain learns. When our students complete puzzles, they are working on problem-solving skills. When they play a game with rules to follow, they are learning how to cooperate and interact with others. When they play against an opponent, they are learning how to develop strategies, predict outcomes, and use logical thinking skills.  What a better way to squeeze in play than with critical thinking games in the classroom? In this post, I’ll share seven of my favorite critical thinking games for primary students.

For your convenience, I’ve added links to the materials I talk about within the blog post. These are Amazon Affiliate links. This just means Amazon tosses a few cents my way if you make a purchase with the links – at absolutely, positively, no extra cost to you! These little links help me to continue sharing ideas, freebies, and giveaways with you on the site. 

Finding Time for Games in the Classroom

Time. It’s a four-letter word that teachers across the world have a love-hate relationship with. “There’s not enough time!” is a phrase one will frequently hear from a kindergarten teacher as much as a middle school teacher. We know that our students need time to play and have fun in school. We know that games promote SO MANY wonderful skills and brain-friendly challenges for our students.  In addition to Pinterest, teaching blogs, IG, and educational websites, I like to turn to the shelves of stores such as Target, Walmart, and Toys R Us for critical thinking games that my students will love to play! There are TONS of educational and high-quality games that you can find pre-assembled and ready to go- for a great price! So, when can we squeeze games into the classroom? Below are some of my favorite times to add board games and mind-challenging games into our schedule:

• Morning Work
• Small Groups
• Indoor Recess
• Friday Game Days (Use small group time or morning work time for games!)
• Math Centers
• Literacy Centers
• Word Work Centers

Teaching Students How to Play

It’s important to model how to play each game with your students. The critical thinking games I am going to share in this post take a lot of brain energy! They are designed to be fun- but challenging- for your students. As a result, don’t expect students to pick up how to play instantly and be able to independently play the games right away. I like to model and play the games with my students at the small group table. For example, every time I introduce a new Brainamin short or long vowel game as a word work center for my students, we play it at the small group table. I do this for math and literacy centers, too.  In this way, I can correctly show students the materials, the rules, and I can even play with them to model my thinking and let them hear what I am thinking as I strategize my next moves and make decisions throughout the game. When students have had ample time to play and see how the game works WITH you, they will be more confident and have more fun when they play with their friends and classmates.

Organizing Your Games

Whenever possible, I like to get rid of the boxes the games come in and put them into plastic tubs. The boxes just seem to deteriorate over time, and the lids on the plastic bins help us keep everything tidy and organized. I use many of my critical thinking games during morning work time on Mondays and Fridays and during math and literacy centers. (On Tuesday, Wednesday, and Thursdays we use my See, Think, Wonder, Write routine for morning work .) I will be sharing more about my morning tub time (or what I like to call, Brain Bins) in future blog posts. For now, you can find the bins I use to store my critical thinking games in the links below. You’ll find two sizes of bins. For games that have a board game to them, I like to use the larger, flatter bins. For card games or other critical thinking materials such as the toys and activities I mentioned in this post , I use the medium bins because they take up less space and are really deep!

Medium Bins:

Now, let’s get started learning about seven really fun games that you can use for centers in your classroom. These games will challenge your students’ minds, while encouraging them to use problem-solving, critical thinking, logical thinking, deductive reasoning skills, and most importantly, have fun learning!

Hoot Owl Hoot

If you teach little ones, Hoot Owl Hoot is a MUST. Hoot Owl Hoot is designed by a company called Peaceable Kingdom. This is an award-winning game that focuses on cooperative play. (The game won the  Oppenheim Toy Portfolio Platinum Award.) The object of the game is to help the owls fly back to their nest before the sun comes up. Students use color cards to move the owls closer to the nest. If they draw a sun card, they are one step closer to daylight. The BEST part of this game? EVERYONE wins! That’s right. The students must work together to get all of the owls to their nest. Whether you have a preschooler at home or teach kindergarten or first grade, this is a great game for kids! On top of the cooperative play, students have to use problem-solving skills and shared decision-making skills to be successful. It’s truly a wonderful game that challenges little ones’ thinking skills while having fun with friends!

SEQUENCE LETTERS

Sequence Letters is a game designed for ages 4-7, making it the perfect literacy and word work center for the kindergarten and first-grade classroom. To play, students name the letter on their card, say the sound for that letter, and then match it to a picture on the board that begins with that letter sound. The object is to get five of your game tokens in a row on the board. Can we talk about how perfect this game is for an intervention group or kindergarten small reading lesson?! What I love even more is that the letter cards feature the letter in both uppercase and lowercase, so students are seeing both forms every time they play. Sequence Letters is a game that every primary teacher needs to add to their classrooms!

SEQUENCE FOR KIDS

Sequence for Kids is another version in the Sequence games line-up. This is a great critical thinking game for students who cannot yet read, and it makes the perfect indoor recess game for strategy skills! At first, the initial concept of the game seems TOO easy: Students simply place a token on the picture on the board that matches the picture on their card. When a player gets four tokens in a row, he or she wins. Don’t let this game fool you! There is a lot of thinking-rich strategy skills involved when playing this game. You see, in addition to the picture cards, there are also unicorn and dragon cards. A unicorn card allows you to place your game token anywhere on the board. A dragon card allows you to remove an opponent’s game token. Now, you’ve got a game that involves some “if this…then that” thinking! Which, my friends, are the games I love for kids! You can find Sequence for Kids below:

Brain-Freeze

If you don’t own Brain-Freeze , RUN and get it! It is not only engaging, fun, and child-friendly, but it is the perfect strategy game for young students ages 5 and up. Brain-Freeze reminds me of a cooler version of Guess Who for kids. It also builds mental skills such as memory, deductive-reasoning, and strategy skills. It received multiple awards for children and only takes about 15 minutes to play. That amount of playing time makes it an ideal game to place in a literacy center or math center for kindergarten, first-grade, and second-grade students. To play, one child chooses a sweet treat off of the “menu” and circles characteristics of the treat on their game board. The other child guesses and asks questions about what the sweet treat is, just like in the game, Guess Who? Using a dry-erase marker, the player who is guessing crosses out and eliminates different choices based on the clues and the answers the first player gives. The object is to correctly guess the sweet treat the first player secretly chose at the beginning of the game. This game is also wonderful for asking questions and using inference skills! Find it here:

Let’s move on to some more challenging games. These next few games are great for second-grade and up. On the Dot is a challenging puzzle game that requires focus, creative thinking, and an ability to look at things from new perspectives. It’s a true brainteaser that students will love! To play, students choose two transparent cards. The cards have colored dots on them. The student must rotate, flip, turn, or overlap the cards in order to get the dots on both cards to match up. This game is great for building and practicing logical thinking, spatial reasoning, and problem-solving. With 60 different puzzles to match up, On the Dot is a game that can stay in your bins for a long time!

Swish is a game designed for ages 8 and up. It reminds me of On the Dot with transparent cards and colored hoops, or circles. Players take turns stacking and matching up the colored cards. When a match is made, the player keeps both cards. The player with the most matches wins. After playing this game a few times, I decided the Swish Junior game would be the best version to start with in the primary classroom. The pace would go faster and kindergarten and first-grade students would feel more confident and successful. In the Junior version (ages 5+), players layer or stack two or more transparent cards to make a match. The cards have shapes on them in various colors and sizes, making it a much better game for primary students! The Junior version would be great for building spatial reasoning skills and promoting shape recognition. You can find the Swish Junior version below:

For my last critical thinking game, I can’t get enough of my Brainamin games! In this post, I’ll feature the CVC-e and long vowel edition , but I also have a Brainamin Short Vowel Bundle and a B rainamin Vowel Teams Bundle available, too. This is one of the best games to add to a morning tub or literacy center, and it’s certainly fun to use as a small group warm-up game! If you have students who are struggling with  decoding and phonics skills, these games also make a nice change of pace for an intervention group. To play, students flip over two cards: a word card, and a picture card. The students will scan the cards and find the matching word and picture, as shown below:

There is only one match, so the students must think fast and be the first person to find it. The student who finds the match first gets to keep both cards in his or her pile. The student who has the most matches in his or her pile at the end of the game wins. (You can also just play for fun and not keep “score” using the matches.) Let’s play again. Can you find the matching word and picture in the cards shown below?

SO fun, right?! What I love MOST about Brainamin is that you can play with a group of students, or with just two students. In fact, students can even play against themselves as an independent game as they race to find the matches among the deck of cards. Brainamin not only improves phonics skills but it also works on visual discrimination skills, critical thinking skills, deductive reasoning, decoding, and fluency for word recall. You can find the different Brainamin bundles and games that I have available by below:

• Brainamin Short Vowels (cvc words)
• Brainamin Long Vowels (cvc-e words)
• Brainamin Vowel Teams
• …more to come in the future!

Try Brainamin for FREE!

You can learn more about critical thinking AND get a FREE Brainamin Short A game pack in a blog post I wrote by clicking HERE or on the blog post image below:

I hope you enjoyed learning about these seven games for critical thinking in the primary classroom! I know they will add fun, play, and lots of great thinking skills into your classroom routine. In order to save this post for later or share it with a colleague, feel free to use the image below to PIN IT on Pinterest !

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One Comment

Loved all the games which you have shared with us. Perfect way to engage kids in such fun games for long hours which helps to nurture their overall growth. In this world of technology. where kids are inclined more towards playing online or video games, which affects their physical as well as mental growth. I think it the responsibility of parents to involve kids in games or activities which helps to improve their overall development. Saved your entire list of games to incorporate these in regular kids play. Thanks for sharing such an awesome list of games with us.

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25 Fun and Educational Card Games to Play With Kids

Deal out some entertainment.

Is there anything more reliably entertaining than a good game of cards? In addition to being a lot of fun, card games can also be used in the classroom or at home to teach valuable lessons. You can use a standard deck to play games like gin rummy, war, or spades while honing your students’ deductive reasoning, math, and decision-making skills. There are even fun card games that build communication and memory skills. Whether you’re teaching pre-K or high school students, there are fun card games on our list for kids of all ages.

(Just a heads up, WeAreTeachers may collect a share of sales from the links on this page. We only recommend items our team loves!)

Fun Card Games To Build Language and Communication Skills

You can use the classic card game Go Fish to practice simple question formation. We especially love that this specific version of the classic teaches your students new adjectives with descriptive colors like apricot and chartreuse.

Learn more: Busy Teacher/Go Fish (Yes/No Questions)

Buy it: Go Fish on Amazon

2. Snap It Up!

This is the perfect game for early readers since it challenges them to build words at a fast pace.

Buy it: Snap It Up on Amazon

3. Jumbilee Stories

This game is the Mad Libs of card games since players lay cards down that form a silly story. It is perfect for early readers and will definitely have your students in stitches.

Buy it: Super Simple Songs on Amazon

4. Letz Talk

A card game that will get your preteen to talk while also having fun—yes, please! While a lot of card games rely on yes/no questions, this one forces kids to voice their opinions and thoughts in a more thorough way.

Buy it: Letz Talk on Amazon

5. Prepositions Review with Standard Deck

Use a deck of cards to create a grid on a table that is five cards by four cards, then create a stack of index cards that have different prepositions of locations written on them. The index cards will serve as the draw pile. During each student’s turn, they will select a preposition card and then describe the relationship of two of the cards in the grid.

Learn more: Busy Teacher/Prepositions Review

Fun Card Games to Work on Math Skills

Be sure to check our our roundup of more math card games here .

6. 21 Card Game

Known as either 21 or Blackjack, this fun card game works on addition skills while also enhancing critical thinking. Students want to get their hand as close to 21 as possible but need to be careful not to go over!

7. 100 Card Game

Before playing, decide if you are going to play with just the numbers 1 through 10 or use Jack (11), Queen (12), King (13), and Ace (0) cards as well. Students pull from the draw pile until someone reaches 100 without going over. Once you go over 100, you are out of the game. If the draw pile runs out and no one has reached 100, the player closest to 100 is declared the winner. Students will be challenged to add quickly while also having a lot of fun!

Learn more: 123 Homeschool 4 Me/100 Card Game

We love fun card games that can be used to teach a multitude of math skills like greater-than/less-than, addition, subtraction, multiplication, etc. Check out the link below for all the different ways this classic game can be amended.

Learn more: Denise Gaskins

9. Boom Goes the Dynamite!

This game is similar to Memory but with a fun math twist. We love that this game can be played by kids as young as six, but can be challenging enough even for adults!

Buy it: Boom Goes the Dynamite on Amazon

10. Math Stacks

This math game will be doable but challenging for upper elementary school kids. Students work during the game to make equivalent stacks of three. The winner is the person who has the most stacks at the end of the game.

Buy it: Math Stacks on Amazon

11. Fraction Battle

Before playing, make sure kids have scratch paper or a whiteboard and marker on hand to do some problem-solving. During each turn, players turn over two cards that will be their fraction. The winner is the person with the larger fraction and, consequently, they get to keep the cards.

Learn more: Upper Elementary Snapshots/Fraction Battle

This card game that uses a standard deck of cards helps kids work on their counting skills while thinking and acting quickly. Players are dealt cards that they try to get rid of by assembling them in numeric order, eventually reducing the cards they have each round.

Fun Card Games to Improve Memory

This version of Memory is a fun spin on an old classic since it is all about food. Don’t play before lunch though unless you want a bunch of hangry students on your hands!

Buy it: Memory on Amazon

14. 5-in-1 Card Game

We are big fans of the hilarious show Bluey so we couldn’t resist the opportunity to put this adorable card set on our list. This single deck can be used to play Snap, Battle, Go Fish, Old Maid, and Memory.

Buy it: Bluey Card Game Set on Amazon

15. Peek and Push

This game can be played by middle school students all the way up to adults since it can be adjusted based on ability level. Real-life users love the game, with one commenting, “This game has everything you would want: strategy, pace of play and it’s never the same game each time you play it.”

Buy it: Peek and Push on Amazon

16. Solitaire

Solitaire is a perfect choice for students that may not have a sibling or someone else at home that can play a game with them. We especially love that it can be played digitally or with a classic deck of cards. Solitaire works on memory and organizational skills as players sort through cluttered decks to organize their cards into numerical order and black and red sequences.

Learn more: Bicycle Cards/How to Play Solitaire

Fun Card Games That Require Critical Thinking

17. gin rummy.

Gin rummy is a perfect game for older students or adults since it requires concentration as well as analytical and decision-making skills. Before playing, you will need to deal 10 cards to each player and create a stockpile and a discard pile. During play, players try to create a run, which is a sequence of three consecutive cards in the same suit. They also try to create a set, which is a group of at least three cards of the same number.

18. Critical Thinking Cards Deck

This card game is so unique and will challenge teens to recognize manipulation, faulty logic, and propaganda in everything from the media, politicians, and even their own minds!

Learn more/Buy it: The Thinking Shop/Critical Thinking Card Deck

19. Guess in 10

We love the game play and strategy involved as students try to make correct guesses in 10 questions or less. Students can use Clue Cards and Bonus Questions while working their way to a seven-card victory.

Learn more: Guess in 10 on Amazon

Playing spades enhances critical thinking skills since it forces players to think about which cards to play and when. This game is best played in groups of four so make sure there are plenty of friends available.

21. Guess Who?

You probably have fond memories of playing the original version of this game in childhood, but now it’s pocket-sized and ready to travel! Kids will have to use deductive reasoning skills to figure out who is on their opponent’s card.

Buy it: Guess Who? on Amazon

Best Card Games Just for Fun

22. triple tongue twisters.

Raining outside? This is the perfect indoor recess game since it will keep kids still while resulting in a ton of laughter and fun.

Buy it: Triple Tongue Twisters on Amazon

23. Name That Puppy

Fun card games that also include puppies! Kids will definitely have fun looking at adorable pups while selecting names for them.

Buy it: Name That Puppy on Amazon

24. Old Maid

This game is a classic for a reason—it is just so much fun! We especially love that the jokers can be used too!

25. Happy Salmon

This is the perfect game for early finishers or for indoor recess. It is quick and can be played by a large group.

Buy it: Happy Salmon on Amazon

If your students like card games, try these math card games !

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Cognitive biases make our judgments irrational. We have evolved to use shortcuts in our thinking, which are often useful, but a cognitive bias means there’s a kind of misfiring going on causing us to lose objectivity. This website has been designed to help you identify some of the most common biases stuffing up your thinking. Click on the icons above to see full explanations on link-able pages e.g. yourbias.is/confirmation-bias and share this website to help make the world a more rational and thinky place:

Critical Thinking Cards

Get yourself a deck of these pretty great high-quality cards featuring 24 logical fallacies, 24 cognitive biases, and 3 game cards. Play watching cable news or a political debate!

Visit The Thinking Shop

Help Save the World from itself

Back our non profit on Patreon & get instant access to our posters, critical thinking cards, & exclusive content like our Critical Thinking Presentation document in PPT/Key formats. Also, when the apocalypse comes you can say 'well, at least I tried'.

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Get a free biases poster

This handy reference poster highlights 24 of the most common biases that affect our thinking. Download a printable PDF version or get a nice printed wall poster delivered.

Click here to visit The Thinking Shop

Get kitted with thinking superpowers.

Kitted Thinking Tools provide mental models as a visual, interactive, modular system of physical and digital cards. Think of them like building blocks for higher-order thinking that you can use to optimize opportunities, reduce risks, and create many amazing things. Published free online under Creative Commons and as beautifully designed decks of cards Kitted donates 5% of profits to The School of Thought and we thank them for their support.

Please help us to spread rationality by sharing this site on Facebook:

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Pay it forward by helping to spread the rational word on facebook:.

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Fallacy: The Game

If you've ever watched a talk show, followed the news or heard a speech, you've probably encountered fallacies before. Fallacy: The Game lets you use them for entertaining, absurd and/or ruthless debates with friends and family. To win, you will need tactical and improvisation skills as well as a bit of luck. Fallacy: The Game is for everyone who loves a good debate, fruitful exchange of ideas or wants to improve their persuasiveness. Those who are involved in politics or deal with media in their professional life will also recognize the cards in their day-to-day life.

Fallacy: The Game also helps teach critical thinking, with many cards touching on logic, psychology, ethics and statistics. When is an analogy a lame comparison? When does correlation imply causation? What makes a question loaded? Not only can the cards help understand these arguments and what they rely on, they also practice wit and help illuminate a topic from multiple perspectives. Whether you discuss tax policy or whose turn it is to do the dishes, Fallacy: The Game is here to help.

Change of subject

„Pretty cold today.“ — Changing the subject is intended to end or interrupt a discussion and is is usually a sign of disinterest or a lack of arguments.

False analogy

„A weak economy is like a lazy horse: when it doesn't toe the line, you need to draw in the reins!“ — An analogy is false when experiences or solutions from a situation get transferred to the subject matter despite fundamental differences, or with no meaningful basis for the comparision.

Personal attack

„Why should we listen to a wife beater about copyright reform?“ — Instead of criticizing arguments, this attack targets the opponent directly and personally.

„It's not what it looks like!“ — A falsehood becomes a lie when someone who knows it's untrue spreads it. That makes it a perticularly malicious form of manipulation that abuses the trust of the other person.

„Everybody makes mistakes. Think about the pressure politicians are under!“ — Appealing to pity is supposed to excuse mistakes or prevent criticism. Who enjoys causing suffering?

„Germany is a rich country, therefore every German is rich.“ — To infer a statement about an individual from information about a group as a whole is also a form of prejudice.

(Un)involvement

„Those without kids can't possibly understand“ — The reproach here is that someone without personal experience isn't qualified — or in reverse that someone personally affected isn't objective.

„With so many chemicals in it, it can't be healthy.“ — An argument from nature assumes that only what is natural can be good or true.

„If cannabis wasn't dangerous, it wouldn't be illegal.“ — Inferring morals from law is strictly speaking a mistake of cause and effect. Laws are (mostly) based on the morals of their time, but aren't tied to laws.

Circular logic

„The Bible is the word of God. It says so in the Bible.“ — In this classic argument a statement, argument or source is used to justify itself.

Slippery slope

„If we legalize marijuana, what's next? We'd have to legalize heroin, too!“ — a slippery slope argument assumes that an action will inevitably lead to a whole chain or increasingly drastic actions.

Wishful thinking

„There must be a life after death, otherwise life would be pointless.“ — Wishful thinking is a form of reasoning that is solely founded on the wish for its truth.

Burden of proof

„God exists. Prove me wrong!“ — The burden of proof assumes an obligation of the other person to provide evidence for their position, or refute the opposite point. It can be used as a comfortable option to make claims without basing them on facts, leaving this task to the other person.

„The sun is supposed to be bigger than Earth? That tiny spot?“ — When arguing from ignorance a statement gets rejected for seeming improbable, incomprehensible or unbelievable.

Insufficient sample

„A poll of our readers shows that our magazine is the most popular in the region!“ — A sample is not typical when it has systematic differences from the population it is supposed to represent. Generalizing from such a sample leads to bias.

There are 16 categories with 4 cards each, roughly in order of complexity (so you can make the game easier by omitting higher categories). Each card has a title, description and an example given. Many arguments are also known by multiple titles, which are listed as aliases, and some can be expressed with logic symbols. The category an argument of this type can counter well, and the one whose cards are great counters to it in turn, are noted as well.

From change of topic to generalization, to lie, tradition, spurious correlation, wishful thinking and insignificance, we have collected everything that can be used to argue for a point of view. You might find some real-life arguments fit more than one card, or don't quite fit perfectly - but in a game of bad arguments, bad pattern-matching is par for the course.

The Best Card Games for Developing Critical Thinking Skills

1. Poker: Poker is a classic card game that has long been associated with strategic thinking and decision-making. Players must evaluate their hand strength, read their opponents, and make calculated bets based on the information available to them. It requires analytical skills, the ability to calculate probabilities, and the consideration of risk versus reward. Playing poker regularly can enhance logical reasoning, probabilistic thinking, and observation skills, making it an excellent choice for developing critical thinking abilities.

2. Bridge: Bridge is a trick-taking game that requires players to work together with a partner to win as many tricks as possible. It involves communication, cooperation, and logical deduction. To excel at bridge, players must plan their moves carefully, anticipate their partner’s intentions, and accurately deduce the distribution of cards among the opponents. The game enhances critical thinking, problem-solving, and pattern recognition, making it a fantastic choice for those seeking to develop these skills.

3. Magic: The Gathering: Magic: The Gathering is a collectible card game that combines strategy, planning, and creativity. In this game, players build their own decks using various cards, each with unique abilities. They must create a well-rounded and synergistic deck to outsmart their opponent. Magic: The Gathering promotes critical thinking by requiring players to think strategically, anticipate their opponent’s moves, and adapt their strategies accordingly. It also encourages creativity and encourages players to analyze complex interactions between cards.

4. Cribbage: Cribbage is a two-player card game that involves counting and strategy. The objective is to score points by forming combinations of cards and reaching specific point totals. It requires players to perform mental calculations, evaluate their hand’s potential, and make strategic choices on which cards to keep or discard. Cribbage enhances critical thinking by developing numerical reasoning, mental math, and tactical planning skills.

5. Solitaire: Solitaire is a single-player card game that has numerous variations. It requires players to strategically move cards around to achieve a specific goal, such as sorting them by suit or value. While it may seem like a simple game, solitaire exercises critical thinking skills such as problem-solving, pattern recognition, and planning. It encourages players to think ahead, consider multiple options, and make decisions based on the information available.

About Games

Related articles.

The Top 5 Card Games for Improving Your Patience

The Psychology of Card Games: How to Win and Lose with Grace

The Top 10 Classic Card Games Every Gamer Should Know

The History of Playing Cards and Card Games

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Featuring 24 common logical fallacies and cognitive biases, plus three game cards, this is what the world – and your extended family, friends and associates need.

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This deck of Critical Thinking Cards will help spot manipulation, dodgy logic, propaganda and persuasion techniques from advertisers, politicians, the media, and your own brain.

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