The Discovery of Deduction: A Schoolhouse Crew Review

I bet you guys know by now that when you see that logo up there I'll be sharing something that I love. You're right!  Classical Academic Press  has another material that we were able to review that has sealed the deal, this company is my go to for all the extras we love to have in our homeschool. This time around Michelle and I had the pleasure of reviewing The Discovery of Deduction: An Introduction to Formal Logic, along with The Discovery of Deduction Teacher's Edition.

                                                    
The Discovery of Deduction: An Introduction to Formal Logic is a course of study that is geared towards children in grades as early as eighth grade. It includes 4 units that is made up of 9 chapters, each chapter is divided by lessons. There are 9.7 lessons in this course. You may choose to follow the Suggested Schedules for either a semester or year long study. This course is intended to be used after the The Art of Argument, An Introduction to the Informal Fallacies, however it can still be used as a stand alone course. The cost of this text is $26.95.  The text is written to the student and it includes workbook style pages for the student to use to illustrate their understanding of the text and in Michelle's case dig deeper into the study. You can see samples here.
                                             
The Teacher's Edition is made in the exact style of the student's text, but it also includes the answers to the  workbook style pages. Unlike most Teacher's Editions that I purchased before this one as a real feel to it. I loved that I was being an active participant during our lesson time.  We were able to read our lessons together and I was still able to take the lead when it was necessary with the answers right there in front of me. Although I never hide my lack of knowledge in a subject area from my children, it was good to feel confident about my understanding without have to say " I'll have to find that answer later." The cost of the Teacher's Edition is $29.95, you can find samples here.

We started using this course as outlined in the suggested year long schedule, but we had to eventually make up of our own schedule due to Michelle's strong interest in this course. The first lesson went slower than I thought it would. Michelle learned the difference between formal logic and informal logic, but she came away with learning more about Socrates. Which led us to study Socrates, and we have been studying Socrates ever since!! In between getting to know Socrates we were able to squeeze in all those workbook pages verbally. It would of been pointless for her to record the answers since she was exhibiting so much passion in our dialogues. I relied heavily on the questions in the textbook to lead discussions and to keep Michelle's attention on the Points to Remember which is a brief section that outlines what is to be the focus of the lesson.  This course can be done with the student working alone,  but after I had a chance to look through the material I decided this was a course that I could greatly benefit from as well and I also would of felt lost in following her progress if I wasn't an active participant.  I highly recommend this course for high school grades and especially those students who love to debate. Michelle has fallen deeper in love with forming arguments and I can see that this course will prepare Michelle for her dream of being on a college debate team.