Integration of social studies into other curriculum

   It is important to try to incorporate different subject areas into other areas in the curriculum. I have heard over and over again that social studies should be incorporated into literacy, science should be incorporated into math or vice versa. I personally believe that the subjects are not watered down when they are incorporated into other subjects. I believe students almost get more out of social studies when it is  integrated with literacy. It is being used for another subject, so students are able to see how it is more relevent in their lives and see how it affects other parts of their subjects and lives.
   The other day, my cooperating teacher incorporated social studies into the literacy time by informing students that the social studies textbook they use is an informational nonfiction text. In the students literacy time my cooperating teacher was talking about nonfiction text and made sure to mention the social studies text as a part of the nonfiction text. She had students make predictions about what they thought would be in the book by looking at the pictures on the front of the book and looking at the title of the social studies book. After they made predictions students read some of the headings and some of the text to see if their predictions were accurate. Also, for my read aloud for my literacy class I read a social studies level reading book to my students. They really enjoyed this book and were able to learn more about geography of North Carolina. Students were able to answer literacy questions and use sticky notes to answer them. These are usually techniques that are used in literacy but they were used with a social studies reading book. In this case, students were learning a lot of social studies concepts while using literacy skills to reflect on their reading. Social Studies content was NOT watered down in anyway. For my Science Unit, one of my activities had students collect the high and low temperatures for a week and then find the average for each day and week. Once they were done they plotted the data on a line graph. For this assignment students are fully learning math and science concepts. They are learning how to measure temperature and how to find the average and plot those points on a line graph.
I believe it is impossible to dedicate enough time in the school day for an ample amount of time for social studies, science, math and literacy so I believe that incorporating other subjects into one subject is necessary. Students might be learning about the regions of North Carolina in their social studies class but there learning about that subject matter does not have to stop there. To receive additional information about the subject areas, students can read or do some activity with the subject matter in literacy. There are many ways in which two subjects can be incorporated without one being watered down. There are many math books that can be shared with the class and students can make predictions with in the reading but also work math problems. Overall, I do not believe that when incorporated into other subjects, social studies is watered down. The subject is only developed more and practiced more by students as they explore the concept integrated into another subject matter!