Wednesday, June 21, 2023

 Have you ever felt like there just isn’t enough time to teach everything that

needs to be covered? When I first began teaching 4th grade Social Studies and

Language Arts, I was definitely overwhelmed with this feeling! I felt like I was

constantly leaving something out and just struggled with how to do a better job

at balancing all of the content. 


It was about that time that my teaching partner 

and I stumbled upon the concept of integration. We were “in between” series in

Language Arts and decided to try teaching all of our standards through the use

of novels. As we carefully selected our first one to try, we were both shocked

at how effortlessly so many language arts standards could be introduced,

reviewed, or practiced in just one chapter of a good, old fashioned novel

written on an upper elementary reading level! 


We decided to take it one step further and choose a book that would also cover 

our social studies standards.  After analyzing several recommended books, we 

decided to go with Frindle by Andrew Clements. This novel clearly had a 

great economics connection and we felt confident that we could engage our 

students through this story in order to help them understand the economic 

standards. Wow! We had no idea how effective this method of teaching 

would be! The kids LOVED reading the story about Nick and his friends 

inventing a new word. They understood concepts like supply and demand, 

entrepreneurship, patents, opportunity costs, needs vs wants, and so many 

others as real life examples literally were right in front of them on the 

pages of this wonderful story! 


In addition, we were also able to introduce our language arts

standards of character traits and actions, perspective and point of view, and

making inferences. To top that off, our grammar and vocabulary lessons were all

based on words pulled from the book to make it more meaningful and connected

for the students. We spent about 5 weeks on that initial integrated unit of study,

and we’ve never looked back! 


Every unit we teach now surrounds a chunk of our

social studies standards and is supported by the language arts skills that we

need to cover. Today, the amount of skills we can cover in 90 minutes

incredible. And, it’s all so connected for the kids! Here is a list of 4th grade

novels and topics we cover and connect through this integrated model of

teaching:


  Frindle by Andrew Clements:  Economics 

  Who was Magellan by Sydelle Kramer:  New World Exploration

  Sign of the Beaver by Elizabeth G Speare:  Native Americans 

  George Washington’s Socks by Elvira Woodruff:  American Revolution 

  Who was Thomas Edison by Margaret Frith:  Inventors 

  The Cabin Faced West by Jean Fritz: Pioneer:  Westward Movement


I can’t recommend this way of teaching enough! It will truly bring the magic and

love of literatures back into your teaching!


No comments:

Post a Comment