Teaching the Logic to Preschool Students

By

Anthony J. Fejfar, B.A., J.D., Esq., Coif

© Copyright 2009 by Anthony J. Fejfar

Developmental Psychologist, Piaget, states that children are in concrete

operations in preschool and kindergarten. Therefore, you must use manipulatives to

teach Logic to them. Consider the following.

Give the child an apple and an orange. Get the child to describe the differences

between the apple and the orange. Then have the child agree with you that the apple is

not the orange. This is the Logical Rule that A is not B.

Now, the exercise involves the following.

Give the child an apple in his left hand. Have the child agree that there is an apple in his

hand. This symobolizes the idea the A is true. Then have the child put the apple

behind his back and hold out his empty hand. This symbolizes the idea of not A is true.

Then ask the child to agree that the left hand either has the Apple (A) or no Apple (not

A). This symbolizes the idea that you cannot have A and not A at the some time. This is

the concrete proof of the Rule of the Excluded Contradiction.