Integrating the Curriculum? Start with FOSS!
By Kathy Daiker

Integrating the curriculum is easy when you start with a FOSS module. Elementary teachers know all the reasons for integrating the curriculum: putting learning into context, making connections between curriculum areas, saving time, etc. How you put it all together, however, is always the question that goes unanswered. Here are some ideas that may help you get started.

General Planning
Look through the FOSS Teacher Guide. If you are teaching this module for the first time, you should quickly read through the entire guide or watch the Teacher Preparation Video so you know what to expect throughout the module. If you have taught the module before, you can simply refer to the matrix found near the back of the Overview folio. The matrix summarizes all of the activities, including extensions and activities that integrate other curriculum areas. Also be sure to check the FACTs (they are found after the student sheets in the Teacher Guide) for books and other resources that you may want to include. You'll also probably want to check your school and local libraries for additional books.

Plan to spend about two weeks on each activity folio. To plan each week, look through the purpose section, choose what you think are the most important concepts, and turn them into guiding questions for the week. For example, the model shown here is from the grade 1-2, Balance and Motion Module. The guiding question for the first week for Activity 1, Balance, is "How do we get things to balance in a stable position?" (The second week focuses on building mobiles and dynamic balance.) This will be the question the students will come back to time and time again as they continue new activities and discuss what they have discovered. It's just as important to follow through on the extension activities and give children time to create some investigations on their own as it is to complete the program activities.

Once you have all of your resources pulled together and have determined guiding questions for the module, you're ready to begin outlining each week's activities. The model shown here suggests beginning each day with a FOSS activity, but you may start some days with a math problem, a read-aloud story, or even centers. The choice you make will depend on the nature of the activities and how they best fit together. For example, on Day 2 you might want to start out with the math problem because it is directly related to how much equipment you will need for the class before they get started.

Planning Specific Activities
Whole-class activities are taken directly from the FOSS Teacher Guides. They include the main activities in each folio as well as extension activities that require the students to use what they have learned in a new situation. The extensions are also intended to give the students some time to explore the many questions that arise during the more directed activities on their own. (Days 3 and 5 are examples of extensions used in this model.)

Math Problems. These math problems are inspired by the teaching strategies suggested in Young Children Reinvent Arithmetic books written by Constance Kamii. Dr. Kamii emphasizes the importance of giving children mathematical problems within the context of what is already happening in their lives. You will notice that the problems presented in the model include all of the traditional mathematical operations-addition, subtraction, multiplication, and division. But the point is not for the students to simply identify which process they are using, but rather to use their own thinking to solve the problems and to have time to share their thinking and reflect upon it with the other students in the class. So, if the students are solving the problem of how many feet there are when three children are playing on a balance beam, you would not necessarily expect first graders to write 3 X 2 = 6. Instead you might expect them to draw a beam with three children, each with two feet, or perhaps make tally marks, or even write 2 + 2 + 2. Although the problems given in the model all focus on arithmetic, over the course of the science module you will also want to include problems involving the other mathematical strands.

Read Aloud. The purpose of reading aloud is not only to incorporate literature into the program, but also to help children see science in the context of everyday life. These books may also provide inspiration as writing models. For example, The Important Book by Margaret Wise Brown provides a model of a simple literary style children could copy to describe the important factors to remember when attempting to achieve a stable position in balancing various objects.

You'll notice that two days of the week are identified as times for students to share their own writing and research. The purpose for scheduling this time is so students can read drafts of their writing to their peers and receive comments to help them rewrite the next draft. It also provides time for students to share what they have learned as they research the subject on their own.

Activity Centers. The reading and writing centers are permanent centers throughout the year. The purpose of the reading center is to provide many books and resource materials on the subject the students are studying so they can research on a continuous basis the questions that arise throughout the module. Materials are available at the center for students to take notes and record what they learn. The nature of the recording materials you make available will vary with the age and writing efficiency of the students. There may be anything from large chart paper that the teacher or an older student helper may use to record findings to individual journals the students keep for themselves.

The writing center is stocked with all the materials the students need to create their own poetry and prose. Students may choose to write creatively or to provide information to others. Many of the pieces can be incorporated into a newsletter to send home at the end of the module. The intention is that all students spend time at the writing center during each day and continue to work on projects on a long-term basis. Some of the projects can then be published.

The other activity centers are temporary centers introduced after the related whole-class activities have been completed. For example, you would not introduce the "Balance-Your-Own-Creation" center until after the students had completed that activity on Day 3. The centers can also remain up and available beyond the week for which they are designed. Centers continually come and go on a flexible rotating basis throughout the module. The important thing is to keep the center available as long as the students are interested in the investigation.

Project. The project is intended to integrate social studies and also to promote long-term planning and learning. Therefore, the same project should continue through the entire module. A project that seems appropriate for the Balance and Motion Module is studying circuses because balance and motion are certainly an important part of what happens in a circus. Another project that was certainly appropriate this past summer for this module was the Olympics. In either case, after much historical and practical research, the final project would be to set up a classroom Olympics or circus, which might even include performing feats of balance and motion for other classes or parents.

Assessment. Although assessment is not directly indicated on the model matrix shown for Balance and Motion, it should be mentioned. Assessment is easily embedded in the activities that are suggested throughout the week. For example, you can use the Stable Positions student sheet to see how your students are doing with their understanding of balance. You will have lots of work samples to collect if you want to make portfolios. You will have many opportunities to keep observational records of what students are doing or take pictures to include in portfolios.

If you are interested in integrating the curriculum, you will find that FOSS modules are the perfect starting point. Students love to do FOSS activities, and their enthusiasm is easily carried over into other subject areas. By integrating the curriculum, you will find you save time for yourself, and you will be providing students with experiences they will long remember, both from an academic standpoint as well as from the fun in learning.

Kathy Daiker was the lead developer for the FOSS early childhood modules and is currently a doctoral student in early childhood education at the University of Alabama at Birmingham.