Playing the Devil's Advocate is a great way to teach wariness to just taking idea's at face value, and will also develop your child's ability to work out why the statements are wrong. Another practice that me and my mother would do is have a conversation, and let it flow to where it may. At some point, we would then stop the conversation and try to follow the flow backwards to the original point of the conversation. While it sounds mundane, I now look back on it as great practice in following my train of though, and seeing why I think what I think.
So I have a three-year old kid, and will usually read or tell him a bedtime story.
That is a nice opportunity to introduce new concepts, but my capacity for improvisation is limited, especially towards the end of the day. So I'm asking the good people on LessWrong for ideas. How would you wrap various lesswrongish ideas in a short story a little kid would pay attention to?
I'm mostly interested in the aspects of "practical rationality" that aren't going to be taught at school or in children's books or children's TV shows - so things like Sunk Costs, taking the outside view, wondering which side is true instead of arguing for a side, etc.
Pointers to outside sources of such stories are welcome too!
Edit: actually, if you want to share ideas of games or activities of the same kind, go ahead! :)