How much instructional time do I need?

We know your time is precious and we want to help you utilize it as efficiently as possible! Let's take a look at a question about this from one of our users:

Dear Mystery Science,

I love teaching, but my schedule is really unpredictable. Sometimes I only have 15 minutes left in the week for science – but during other weeks I have multiple class periods to devote to science! I need to be able to plan accordingly, so it’s really important for me to know how much time something is going to take. How much instructional time do I need to plan for a Mystery Science lesson?

Thanks,

Keisha

We hear you, Keisha! We know that schools differ in their approaches to science, so we’ve designed a flexible approach to unit pacing. Whether you have 5 minutes or an hour left in the week for science, we have a solution!

In our Science Units, each individual lesson displays the estimated time needed - broken down into the exploration, the hands-on activity, and the wrap up (as well as the optional anchor connection for grades 2-5). In general, the exploration and activity portion of each lesson are designed to take about 30-45 minutes per week, with multiple extension options available to expand upon each lesson.

With that being said, we understand that a teacher’s weekly schedule can be unpredictable! That’s why all of our full lessons can be modified to fit the amount of time you have for science. Videos can be paused at any point if you need to continue the next day, and if you have extra time to fill, full lessons feature additional resources such as extensions and assessments.

If you don’t have enough time for a full lesson, Mystery Science also features mini-lessons! These videos are about 5 minutes long, so if you’re really short on time, they’re a great way to get a bit of science into your day. If you end up having a bit more time after the video, you can try some of the supplemental activities, like Top 5 videos and extensions.

No matter how much class time you have for science, we have a lesson perfect for you!

Curious to learn more? Here are some other resources you may find helpful:

What is the difference between lessons and mini-lessons?
Do you have a quick guide on getting started with Mystery Science?