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Hello, Last week, I taught a lesson about properties of matter. The students investigated which type of ball contained the most mass using a balance scale. By the time I introduced mass and explained the activity students did not have much time to explore and have a proper closing. My question is how can we plan engaging inquiry lessons and stay with in the time limit? Any suggestions are appreciated! Thank you in advance, Azeneth

I also had the same problem when teaching this lesson. My recommendation would be to break the lesson up into two different days.

I had the same problem when i taught a plant cycle lesson plan to a third grade class. By the time the students worked independently, it was time to switch to the next class. I believe science lessons are very time consuming and i totally agree in splitting the lesson into two days, especially when introducing a new topic. it is better to take two days to teach the lesson than to rush and not know if students met your goal.

Maybe you should break the lesson into two days.The first day can be used to shortly engage the students. This should not be more than a couple of minutes. The first day should also be used to construct an experimental question, predict, and design an experiment. If there is extra time the experiment can be conducted. If not, the next day can be used to conduct the experiment for part of the time and use the other time for explanations/discussion. Whatever you do, Do NOT discard the discussion because it is an important part of learning.

In my 4th grade class, we are starting the unit on heating insulators and conductors. I do not know how to approve this topic; does anyone know what activities I can use to teach the students about insulators and conductors in heat? I taught electric conductors and insulators unit, the activity took long than I thought. Do anyone have any suggestions on how I can teach this lesson with a shorter activity.

My CT's partner told me that when she teaches science, she plans it out that the lesson will be at least 2 days because things always come up and they run out of time. I feel this is a good idea to do because it allows you do complete your lesson and give the students time to explore.