Product Review

This GEMS guide features cooperative logic activities that are designed for groups of four students. Each student receives a clue about a problem and needs to share tha information with all the other group members in order to reach the correct solution. The entire group is responsible for finding the solution, and it can only be figured out when students connect and discuss the information from all the clues. The essential element of Group Solutions is that the students have to work together--cooperatively and logically--to figure out the solution.

In addition to its strong emphasis on cooperation, Group Solutions, Too!, like its popular predecessor Group Solutions, fosters the development of many key skills and concepts in mathematics and other subject areas. The two books emphasize different strands of mathematics. However, both books will result in lively interactions and a sense of achievement that will likely lead to student questions such as "Are we really doing math?" and "Can we do this again, soon?"

This book includes 70 cooperative logic challenges organized into five sections, or "Families." Introductory sections explain how to use the book; discuss cooperative learning and logic in the classroom; and provide guidelines for classroom management and effective handling of problems that may arise.

Group Solutions, Too! was a 1998 Parent's Guide Children's Media Award winner for excellence in activity books.