THIRD GRADE

OVERVIEW

READING

In third grade, students select and combine skills to read fluently with meaning and purpose. They apply comprehension and vocabulary strategies to a wider variety of literary of literary genres and informational text. Students demonstrate comprehension by participating in discussions, writing responses, and using evidence from text to support their thinking. They read for pleasure and choose books based on personal preference, topic, or author.

WRITING
Most third-grade students are writing longer texts when writing narratives. They embed their ideas in time and place (setting) and develop stronger characters through detail and dialogue. Their writing is often divided into sections through paragraphing or book parts (e.g., tables of contents, chapters). Information gathering as part of the planning process is common and most students are becoming more selective about vocabulary, especially when writing in task-oriented or functional forms.
A Quick Check:

Does each student:
• Gather and organize information as essential elements of planning?
• Develop characters and setting throughout story?
• Write coherent informational text?
• Organize text into appropriate paragraphs or book parts?
• Revise for detail and accuracy in content and edit for conventions and format?
• Reflect on efforts and achievements?

MATH

In third grade, students develop their fluency with addition and subtraction, while beginning to understand multiplication and division as repeated addition and subtraction, respectively. Students use standard units of measure for temperature, length, liquid volume, and weight. Students gain a broader understanding of geometry by identifying properties of shapes and line segments. Algebraic sense grows through their understanding of equality and by identifying missing numbers in addition and subtraction expressions and equations.

SOCIAL STUDIES

In third grade the main focus is on culture: People, Places and the Environment.

The themes are:

A. Cultures in Our Community

B. Our Native American Past

C. Making Global Connections

D. Related Social Studies Skills

SCIENCE

In third grade students begin to explore more complex systems and make inferences about their observations. Students are developing an understanding of systems and are able to identify individual parts and how they work together. In order to understand how the connections between the parts interact students begin to manipulate one part and look for a change in the system. For example students may study a system of plant growth by observing what happens to plant growth under different light conditions. The guiding question is How do we use our understanding of patterns and connections (interdependence) to describe systems in our natural world? We work on the investigative skills of Inferring , Analyzing, and Quantifying observations.