Interdisciplinary Subjects : Week of July 17th

I commonly teach language arts, in fact it is required to take up a huge portion of the day's schedule in the elementary classroom. No doubt, because NCLB requires all students to be proficient in language arts and math by 2014, a chunk of the day must be devoted to the skills on the test. Every day, practice in comprehension, vocabulary, grammar, and reading takes place in the classroom. I believe that a lot of this content can be dry, repetitive and boring. It causes the students to check out during instruction, and therefor lose educational value. I have a heavy desire to incorporate other subject matter into language arts, especially science, so students can learn valuable language arts skill through rich and meaningful texts and hands on experiences. Whoever said that literature had to be structured in rigid ways, and multiple choice questions had to follow? No! Literature can be fun, interesting, colorful, and interactive. As science is already lacking in many classrooms, I am currently seeking research and activities for ways to incorporate and fuse these two subjects together.

I came across another fellow blogger; Melissa Stewart and a nonfiction writer of over 150 science books for children. She advocates an interdisciplinary approach to teaching science through language arts. She claims on her blog that "nearly 86 percent of scientists who reported loving their jobs could trace their interest in science to someone they knew or an experience they had when they were 7 to 10 years old." As an elementary teacher, it is so exciting and inspiring to know that we have such incredible power to light their interests this young! Melissa gives several links and strategies for infusing science through language arts.
Reading Buddies adapts science-themed picture books into fun Reader's Theatre scripts that Elementary students will love practicing and performing.


Using animal books for Readers Theatre. Scripts based on animal books can easily include a role for every student in the class.


Pairing fiction and nonfiction literature is a great way to introduce and reinforce science concepts. This link gives great science titles for literature too.


You can find Melissa Stewart's website here.


Blogs I responded to:


Debamitra http://rdguha.blogspot.com/
Christina http://missbaronian.blogspot.com/