Teaching TWO Social Studies Curriculums?!

So, in general, I LOVE my split class. I have 11 second graders and 10 third graders, and they are all absolutely amazing. This is my second year in a split class, and I love the challenge of teaching two curriculums. I've been using math workshop to teach both 2nd and 3rd grade math lessons, but I did not have a system I liked for social studies. The curriculums for 3rd and 4th grade, which I taught last year, are so different that I couldn't combine them at all. Instead, every day I was struggling to come up with independent work for one set of kids to work on while I instructed the other group. Well, this year I was NOT going to go through that again. I wanted a solution that would give one group of kids independent work that wouldn't require a lot of directions so that I could use my entire social studies period (which, let's face it, is not even close to enough time) for direct instruction.

Well, VOILA! 

Grab it here!

After a whole lot of thought and a couple of weekends of work, I came up with independent work packets to go along with each unit. This way, I can teach the second graders a lesson on Monday, and then on Tuesday they can complete that lesson's pages in their packets while I teach the third graders their next lesson. This has seriously CHANGED MY LIFE! They're able to complete the pages independently so I'm not constantly interrupted while I'm teaching the other lessons.

These packets are available at my TPT store and can be used either as a companion piece to the MC3 social studies curriculum, or on their own as independent social studies work!