Engaging Students with Studies Weekly | Teacher Testimonial

Speaker: Elizabeth Spasiano, 3rd Grade Teacher, NJ

Elizabeth Spasiano: The reasons that I love using Social Studies Weekly as the teacher are really three-fold. Number 1: it’s very easy. The Teacher’s Guide lays everything out for you. It shows you where you can concentrate on vocabulary, the overreaching theme, comprehension questions, higher-level thinking, and also through the Teacher’s Guide, you have access to lots of resources that you can print out and use either whole-class or small-group.

The other reason that I love Social Studies Weekly is the materials. Each student has their own magazine, we can revisit the magazine, and it goes along with the online component that has lots of embedded videos to provide background knowledge, extension questions, and ideas that relate back to the theme.

The standards are hit with [Studies Weekly]. So when you go through the units you don’t have to worry about, as a teacher, ‘Am I hitting the standards I need to teach?’ They are aligned. 

The other thing that I love about the units are you can pull from any area of the units and incorporate it into other areas of the curriculum. So, one example is in science we were learning about the climates of the United States and climates around the globe. So I went into Social Studies Weekly and I pulled out the lessons on regions of the United States. Then this way the children could explore it from two different avenues. 

Then we moved on to regions around the globe, climates around the globe. So it helped to make this a real world skill, a real world activity, and then they could help their parents plan on where they might want to take a vacation. We also talked about where you might want to live, because where you live influences how you live. So the kids were really into that project that we came up with. 

And it was just again, very easy to use, very engaging. The kids enjoyed it. They love playing the game after reading an article online or in the magazine. I can pull up the online component and we can either work on this game as a whole class to earn coins or we can work with teams. And what’s nice about this is, like if you see the program on TV, where if you don’t know the answer, you could phone a friend. I have the kids in classroom, they can ask a friend. So everybody’s engaged and we give the thumbs up, thumbs down. If we disagree with an answer in the middle, if we don’t know, then we can go back online, reread the article, revisit the question, and help use some test taking strategies as well in going through the components. 

I’ve been teaching for about 30 years. This is my fourth year using Social Studies Weekly. I love the program. It’s very easy to use. Very engaging. The kids enjoy it. And I would encourage anyone who is interested to give it a try.

Elizabeth Spasiano has been an educator for almost 30 years. During her impressive career, she has taught Kindergarten, 1st – 3rd grade, Reading Support, and several Gifted and Talented and Special Education programs.

She is a tremendous resource to her students and her district. During the COVID-19 pandemic, she had the opportunity to work in several roles throughout her district, and her valuable skillset helped her to fill many needs. Despite the challenges she faced, she remained enthusiastic by finding joy in teaching.

Elizabeth is passionate about challenging her students and watching them grow in understanding and confidence. Her ultimate joy is seeing her students have “aha” moments. She also finds joy in her relationships with others and maintains close friendships with other teachers and past students. Her advice for maintaining enthusiasm for teaching is to “keep up with PD, celebrate with teacher friends, and volunteer for new opportunities.”

This upcoming school year is Elizabeth’s fourth year with Studies Weekly Social Studies. For those considering choosing Studies Weekly, she says, “Go for it! It’s student-friendly, relevant topics, you can use it alone or add to it, aligned to the standards, and lots of support & extension materials and opportunities to tie into real-world issues.”