Another meeting! Another program to add to our already overcrowded curriculum. How do they expect us to get everything in between 8:00 and 2:30? Finally, I had had enough. When the speaker asked the rhetorical question, "Are there any questions?" I heard myself saying, "How are we supposed to get this in? There just isn't time!" The speaker gave me a supercilious smile and replied,
"We just can't afford to think in those terms." As I opened my mouth to make a completely inappropriate comment, my friend grabbed my arm and dragged me out into the hall.
That evening, after I vented to my long-suffering spouse, I got to thinking about how I would be able to get it all in. Once I started to think positively, I began to think of some ideas that would help loosen my clogged schedule.
I am the type of person who likes to get completely immersed in whatever I am interested in at the moment. I got to wondering if the kids might feel the same way. What if I used whatever we were studying in Social Studies as a basis for all the work that we were doing. That way, we could be doing two things at once.
We were studying about Indians in Social Studies. We were also working on writing good paragraphs in Language. We had to write paragraphs about something. Why not write paragraphs about Indians? First we talked about the elements of a good paragraph. I found some good line drawings from a coloring book on Indians, reproduced them, and handed them out to the children. I asked them to study the picture and write a good paragraph about what was happening in it. They would make a booklet about the Indians with the collection of pictures and their descriptive paragraphs. For spelling we used words pertaining to Indians. Just to be sure not to get behind in the spelling curriculum, I gave a pre-test on the week's words. Any missed words they were to add to their Indian words. Math was a little more of a problem (no pun intended). I gave the children simple equations and had them write word problems about Indians using the equations. This is an excellent way to see how well the children understand the math concepts.
I began to worry about the Science Curriculum until a veteran teacher pointed out that nowhere was it written that we had to do both Science and Social Studies on the same day. I blocked out the rest of the year in three or four week periods of either Social Studies or Science. That way I had enough time each day to really get into whatever we were studying. No more making the children put away their work just as they were getting interested and starting something else.
When it was time to study Science the topic was Electricity. I thought, "Now is a good time to work on writing clear directions." I challenged the children to create a game using batteries, wires, lights and switches. For Language they had to write clear directions for the game. They also wrote in their Science journals explaining what they did in their experiments and what the outcome was. I checked the journal entries for correct form as well as content.
Are you studying about animals in Science? How about teaching sentence subjects and predicates by having the children use their animal as the subject of some sentences, then write interesting facts about the animal as the predicate. Later you might teach report writing, have them use animals as subjects of the report. They should be able to use some of the sentences in their reports.
It's up to you to begin thinking creatively about your curriculum. How can you make your subjects do double duty? Talk with your colleagues. Share your ideas. Once you get into the concept of piggybacking your subjects, you just may find that you have fun doing it as well.
Hannah Means has taught grades 2 through 6 in Connecticut for the past 25 years and loved every minute of it! She is now retired and enjoys volunteering in the local elementary school. She performs a specialty puppet show entitled CUDDLES. She especially enjoys working with new teachers and sharing ideas with them as well!
Visit Hannah's website for new teachers at http://hannahmeans.bizland.com.
