This article explores examples of student-initiated inquiries (in Grades 1 and 5) and the opportunities and challenges with engaging in them. To explore these student-initiated inquiries, we use the "C3 Framework" Inquiry Arc (National Council for the Social Studies, 2013) and Harvey and Daniels's (2009) Small-Group Inquiry Model to describe the actions and interactions of two elementary school teachers and their students as they take student-initiated inquiries through various stages of the inquiry process. With each classroom example we include the challenges the teachers encountered and we make recommendations for inquiry-based instruction in elementary social studies.