Weekly Gifted Test Prep Club: Puzzles and Reasoning (Ages 6–8)

Young children are natural puzzle solvers, and this club turns the reasoning skills used on gifted and talented screening tests into playful weekly challenges. Instead of drilling, kids solve, build and explain puzzles together in a small, friendly group.

The club follows a 4-week rotating cycle, so children can join any week. One week explores picture patterns and sequences, the next number puzzles and quantity thinking, then word and picture analogies with classification, and finally shapes, paper folding and spatial challenges. Each theme returns with new puzzles in the next cycle.

All puzzles are original and written in the style of common gifted tests such as the CogAT, NNAT and OLSAT; no official test questions are used. Children learn useful habits like looking at every answer choice, saying the rule out loud and checking their thinking.

The club is dyslexia-friendly. Most puzzles are picture-based, any written words are read aloud, and children can answer by pointing, holding up cards or saying their choice. Creative thinking is celebrated: kids often invent their own puzzle for friends to solve at the end.

The goal is confidence and curiosity with these question types, not a particular test result. Families receive a short optional puzzle page each week to try at home.

How classes work

Each session starts with a quick brain warm-up, then the teacher introduces the week's puzzle type with one example. Children solve puzzles together, explain their rule and finish by creating a puzzle of their own.

What we'll cover

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  Week 1: Picture Patterns and Sequences – Find what comes next in shape and colour patterns.

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  Week 2: Number Puzzles and Quantity Thinking – Compare groups, balance scales and solve simple number trains.

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  Week 3: Analogies and Classification – Match picture pairs and find which one does not belong.

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  Week 4: Shapes, Folding and Spatial Puzzles – Explore paper folding, shape matrices and pieces that fit together.

No preparation needed. Children should be able to count to 20 and recognise basic shapes.