Social Studies Lapbooks - Time Management - Part 5 of 5

This is Part 5 of a 5 Part series. 
You can read other parts by clicking the links below:
SS Lapbooks - Part 1 - The Basics
SS Lapbooks - Part 2 - Alternate Uses
SS Lapbooks - Part 3 - Written Responses
SS Lapbooks - Part 4 - Vocabulary Development

One of the biggest struggles for any teacher is time. We never seem to have enough. We can plan our lessons down to the minute and we will still be greedy for more. 

As an elementary teacher it was always a struggle to find time for social studies and science. The screaming needs of ELA and math catapulted those subject areas to the forefront and left the other two standing around like wallflowers waiting for their turn to dance.

I have found ways to "sneak" the illusion of more time into my day while also addressing the social studies curriculum. Try one of these methods for finding more time in your day to teach social studies and get through the inquiries...

30 Minutes a Day

Commit to teaching the inquiry for 30 minutes a day. If you can ensure that a half hour is designated for social studies, you can get through the inquiries; even if you have all 6 inquiries to move through. Each inquiry takes about 2-3 weeks to cover from initial lesson to the summative 4-point response. At 3 weeks per inquiry (6 inquiries total) you will have used up approximately 18 weeks of instruction.

Writing Block

Use the 2-point and 4-point responses as your writing block. Keep your 30 minutes for socials studies focused on the content. When you reach a place where students will be responding in writing, you can shift those lessons to your writing block. That will keep your designated time for social studies concentrated on social studies and you'll still be able to work with students on their writing.

Using your writing block also gives you "permission" to take a bit longer with the writing pieces. If the time planned is a writing lesson (as opposed to a social studies lesson) you will approach it differently and have a different mindset going into the writing components of the inquiry.

Thematic ELA Block

If you're feeling particularly ambitious, approach ELA in a thematic fashion. Create topics or units of study around the inquiry. There are a lot of resources available that might otherwise be considered enrichment materials. Picture books, novels, articles, videos, and the like can be used to create a homogeneous unit of instruction. Use the inquiry as the base and build from there.

For some teachers, they have a 90 minute block of instruction for ELA. If you approach it using a thematic approach, you have now increased your "social studies" time to 2 hours.

If you're wondering about fitting in grammar, vocabulary, phonics, etc... consider the idea of using the vocabulary and texts from the inquiry as the basis of those lessons.

Catch Up Day

If you find yourself falling helplessly behind in pacing, stop everything and teach social studies the whole day. This is usually a "Hail Mary" in lesson planning but can be very effective in catching you up.

I have done Catch Up Days for a whole day. Yes, it can be done. I caution you, though, to keep it interesting. If your plan is to plow through the material in order to declare that it has been taught, it might not go so well. You will still need to break the day down into manageable chunks. You will need to have students working in various groupings and be sure to change up the methods of delivering instruction. Use a combination of video, text, picture books. Make sure students have various ways to respond to instruction and are being engaged in different ways to break up the monotony.

Can't give a whole day to Catching Up? Half Days work well too...They are especially powerful if you will have an uninterrupted block of time between the students getting off the bus and dismissal time.

Some is Better Than None

In the end, there will be times when the conversations needed to be shorter, when you didn't get to every lesson, when the 2-point question was glossed over (or skipped altogether). It's OK. Really.

The students are still learning and gaining insight. They are adding to their knowledge base of the world and how they fit into it. Put the inquiry away and commit to teaching it better next year. Your pacing and delivery will be better. Promise.

You can see a range of grades and topics for social studies in my Teachers Pay Teachers store by clicking the links below:

IOWA SOCIAL STUDIES INQUIRIES
NEW YORK STATE SOCIAL STUDIES INQUIRIES
SOCIAL STUDIES RESOURCES: K-2
SOCIAL STUDIES RESOURCES: 3-6