Ever taught a unit in September only to realize your students barely remember it by March? 😩 You’re not alone!

That’s where spiral learning comes in. In this episode, I’ll show you what spiraling is, why it works, and 4 practical strategies you can use in social studies (and beyond) to help knowledge stick.

👉 Here’s what we’ll cover:

• What is Spiraling?
• Why Spiraling is Important
• 4 Easy Strategies you can do ASAP

With a little planning, your students won’t just learn it and lose it — they’ll carry that knowledge with them all year long.

Resources Mentioned in This Episode:

Free Social Studies Guided Lessons

Daily Passage Bundle for Social Studies

World Cultures Curriculum

Blog Post - Episode 111

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Mentioned in this episode:

Social Studies Guided Curriculum

Easy-to-follow lesson plans and activities for social studies - just print and teach! The complete bundles for Communities, Texas History, and U.S. History are available. Click the link to learn more!

Learn more about the Smart and Simple Social Studies Guided Curriculum!

5 Social Studies Guided Notes

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This is the Social Studies Teacher Podcast, a show for busy elementary teachers looking for fun and engaging ways to easily add social studies into their classroom schedule without feeling overwhelmed or pressed for time. I'm Kirsten of the Southern Teach, an educator and mom who is passionate about all things social studies.

I love sharing ideas and strategies that are low prep and easy to implement, so let's dive in together.

Hi there, and welcome to another episode of the Social Studies Teacher Podcast. So something I failed to mention in the last video is that this month I'm doing a series of answers to questions from my audience. I, a few months ago, asked a little survey of what. Teachers are wondering about social studies, and the first question was related to.

What they could do to help with vocabulary instruction. What are some strategies to help with vocabulary instruction? And this week's question, I will say it verbatim. I copied it verbatim. How do I spiral some of our learning so kids don't forget what we did earlier in the year? 'cause we know with social studies, you teach a lot of things throughout the year and they may not always.

Remember it and you may not always have the time to review or come back to it, so how can you spiral it so that they don't forget it, and how can they go onto the next grade still retaining some of that information? That is what we're going to discuss. Today. Before we get started with this episode, I wanted to make sure you know that you can subscribe and I would so appreciate it if you liked this video, if you really love it.

If not, then that's okay, I guess. But you could also, if you have any questions, comment, just check out what there is to offer in my YouTube channel, or you can always check out what there is to offer. In the podcast feed, wherever you love to listen to podcast episodes. We are going on. Maybe it's, it's the third year, 'cause I started this in 2023.

So we are on season number three of the Social Studies Teacher podcast. So there's a good amount of really great episodes that you can. Tune into if you haven't already. I also send once a month, um, some recommended and popular podcast episodes. That might be really helpful. It could be good if you haven't listened to it in a while or you haven't heard that it existed, so just make sure to follow along and you'll be able to get those updates, especially if you're on my email list.

I'll make sure to put in the description a way you can sign up so you can get a free, I think it's about four mini lessons, four social studies, common topics. There's one in there that's related to Texas regions, but if you're not in Texas, you can just ignore that. But if you're looking to learn a little bit more about what I offer in the mini lessons and social studies resource sampler, you could always go to the southern teach.com/what is it?

You could always go to the southern teach.com, the slash lessons. Alright, let's go ahead and get started on what to do. If you want to spiral things so students don't forget, we're gonna talk about what spiraling is and not the spiraling that I do sometimes when I worry a lot, but we're gonna talk about another version of spiraling that you can use for social studies and is more productive than the spiraling that is related to my anxiety.

The second thing I'm gonna talk about is why it helps, and we're also gonna talk about four practical strategies that you can use. What is spiraling? The simple way to put it is that you're reintroducing and revisiting topics and concepts so that the knowledge will stick. This can prevent the learn it and lose it problem that we see all the time when there's so many different things we have to teach in a given course or class.

During the school year, it's a way to reinforce key ideas throughout time instead of hyper focusing it on one unit and then just moving on to a completely different unit. So, for example, you might teach map skills in September, and instead of never coming back to it again, you could always revisit it in January.

Maybe after the break, review it and then weave it into what you might be teaching next, maybe related to, let's say in January, you're talking about US regions or world cultures. You can always weave in those map skills that you taught back in September in the next unit. That you have. Now, let's talk about why spiraling is important.

It supports long-term retention. Students are revisiting the knowledge that they might have learned previously. It's a way to help students make connections across units, and it also can build confidence. They might be thinking or have some type of deja vu moment, or it might be, oh my gosh, I remember this.

I remember talking about it. And even for some students, they may not have gotten it the first go around, but then when you've added more context and have built it upon the different units and then you revisit it again, they might really get it and it might stick a little better. And once they have that practice, it could be more that they have, you know, needed just more time with it.

They revisit and they understand it a lot better than when you initially. Talked about it at the beginning of the year, and of course it can help with preparation for state exams or maybe some type of end of year unit or real world application, like a project-based learning project that you might have that you put in later during the school year.

All right, let's talk about those four strategies. Some of these strategies you might already be doing, which would be awesome, and some may be something that you never thought of doing in social studies. And you could try it out. Strategy number one would be daily or weekly spiral review. This is my favorite way to spiral content.

This is something I did when I was teaching math and science and ELA social studies when I was teaching grammar. It's just a really great way to incorporate what they're learning and sometimes they're going to see some concepts, especially if it's already pre-done for you and you're not creating it yourself, you're getting it somewhere off of.

Teachers pay teachers, they might see a concept and they're like, we have not even talked about this. But then as it goes through the school year and you do start teaching these concepts, then it gets easier and easier and also. By the time they get to when you're officially talking about it and teaching it, they're gonna grasp it more quickly because they might have remembered it or have seen it, or have been exposed to it during these spiral review or bell ringers.

So this could be maybe a quick warmup, exit ticket, bell ringer, something you do at the beginning of your. Social studies block or something at the end of your social studies block. Maybe some more examples. You might have a map skills question every Monday, or you might do a short timeline sequencing activity once a week.

The main thing to remember is to keep it five minutes or less, so that it is manageable and just short and sweet. Something just to quickly review what they've already learned. I've mentioned this before, but I do have daily passages that are great for bell ringers for third, fourth, and fifth grade, and in my sixth grade World Cultures curriculum, I do have a.

Projected where you just have a slideshow and it's just one question a day and it spirals and it kind of goes along with the different units that I have for world cultures. But the third, fourth, and fifth grade, all the topics are there for you. It's really a just a short paragraph and a few multiple choice questions, and you can mix and match the passages.

So if maybe you talked about map skills, you can put in the map skills topic. Throw that in there as the week's bell ringer activities later on in the year if you really want them to review some of what you've already taught. All right. Strategy number two is utilizing cumulative assessments or quizzes.

So I remember this personally as a student. So instead of unit only tests. Sprinkle in some questions from previous units and previous topics that you might have already taught. This could be spiraled in the form of, let's say you've got a section with vocabulary matching. Instead of just using all the vocabulary words and definitions from that unit, add in a few that maybe was frequently missed on the previous test.

Or something that they would be familiar with that kind of relates to what they're already talking about in the current unit. So you could also do some multiple choice questions or short answer questions related to what vocabulary words or concepts that they learned in previous units. So in short, basically making it cumulative instead of something that is just completely isolated on its own.

Sprinkle, have the majority of the questions be related to what you talked about, but also sprinkle in some questions or some type of prompt related to previous units so that they are fresh and in their mind and they know that they're not just studying for what they're currently learning. They're also really thinking about what they've learned already.

During the year in the past, it's a way to help them realize basically that everything is connected and it's not just separate silos of knowledge in social studies. A third strategy is using cross unit connections. When you're teaching something new, intentionally link back to something that they previously.

Learned. Let's say you're a US History teacher talking about westward expansion intentionally. Go back and talk about colonization and migration patterns, maybe among indigenous groups or Native American groups and how that relates to currently what you're talking about. Maybe WestBridge expansion in the 18 hundreds when people were moving across the US from the East coast.

Through the West coast, you could also use anchor charts or concept maps to build this knowledge and add on throughout the year as well. Something maybe that they, you can have on the board as a bulletin board or something. They have individually in their notebooks and they add on to that and they come back to it in their notebooks.

During the school year. The last strategy is to make it fun with games and review activities. Sometimes spiraling can be fun when you make it a little interactive with your students. So maybe one day, maybe a fun Friday, you could do a Jeopardy game or a Kahoot game with review questions from all the units that you've covered so far.

Make it a big, fun, meaty game that they. Are going to love and that it takes basically the whole class period. You could do task card review stations, mixing old and new topics so that it's nice and fresh, that they can go back and make sure that they're retaining the knowledge so that they learned in previous month.

And you can also try spiral review slides with one question per slide, and it's mixing in economics and geography and history all related to what you have taught during the school year. So maybe at the end of the class period, you have some slide up with a question. And it could be either short answer or multiple choice, or it could be something where they have to fill in the blank, true false mix and match the item types and just have that review question on the board.

And you can have them use whiteboards. They write their answer that way. You can have them do some type of turn and talk or maybe a prize for the first person or team to answer it. To recap this episode, if you want students to really, really internalize and understand what they've learned throughout the year, spiraling is a perfect way to do that.

Try using a daily or weekly spiral review. You can do cumulative quizzes and assessments rather than something that is. In separate units. You could also make sure in your lessons to connect new learning with earlier learning. And lastly, making sure you're making it fun and interactive with games and review activities.

With a little planning, students are not gonna just learn it and lose it. They are going to retain that information throughout the year and hopefully through the summer and into the next year. With a little planning, your students will not just learn it and lose it. They'll be able to retain the information to make learning meaningful all year long.

All right, well, that is the end of this episode. Make sure to like and subscribe and follow along for more engaging social studies ideas for your upper elementary students. I'll talk to you next time. Thanks for listening to the Social Studies Teacher podcast. If you enjoyed listening to this episode.

Hit that subscribe button and leave a review. I would love to hear your thoughts. You can also find me on Instagram at the Southern Teach. I can't wait for you to join me in the next episode for more teacher tips and strategies.