Curriculum – Grade 3

Third Grade
The students will …

LANGUAGE ARTS

• Learn to read independently – use before, during, and after reading strategies for word identification and comprehension
• increase vocabulary
• summarize and make connections
• demonstrate fluency and comprehension
• Read critically in all content areas – understand essential content in all academic areas
• differentiate fact from opinion, essential from nonessential information
• make inferences
• Read, analyzing, and interpret literature – describe characters, setting, and plot
• identify literary devices in stories, poetry, and drama
• respond to nonfiction and fiction
• identify dialogue of characters
• Writing - write narrative and informational pieces using details and and literary elements
• write and support an opinion
• write with focus in organized paragraphs
• sustain logical order
• use varying sentence lengths and types
• revise
• edit for spelling, capitalization and punctuation
• use parts of speech appropriately
• Speaking and listening – listen to others and express themselves orally in group discussions, reports, and interviews
• Research – locate information from appropriate sources, organize and present a report

MATH

• Use numbers to count, locate, name, measure, and order
• Identify place values and read numbers to six digits
• Use place value to compare, order, and round numbers to the nearest ten or hundred
•  Solve word problem using strategies for both understanding and solving
•  Count and calculate with money, make change, and use decimals and dollar signs
•  Understand properties of + and x
• Use fact families to relate inverse operations
• Use mental math strategies and estimation to calculate
• Write to explain and compare
• Add and subtract 4-digit numbers with trading
• Tell time to the nearest minute and calculate elapsed time
• Collect, organize, display, and interpret graphs and tables
• Learn basic multiplication and division concepts and facts
• Write mathematical stories
• Identify solids, shapes, lines, angles, polygons, symmetry, congruent figures, and motion
• Find perimeter, area, and volume
• Compare, order, and estimate fractions, decimals, and mixed numbers
• Find equivalent fractions
• Measure using customary and metric units for length, weight, temperature and capacity
• Multiply and divide 2 and 3-digit numbers by a 1-digit number
• Use probability concepts

SOCIAL STUDIES

• Understand why communities started in certain locations
• Recognize that communities are comprised of people from many cultures
• Learn how people depend on each other for goods and services
• Learn how the government works to solve local and regional problems
• Understand the geography, the cultures, and the history of the Lehigh Valley
• Identify features and locations on globes
• Interpret data from charts and graphs

SCIENCE

• Identify the life cycles of plants and animals
• Analyze changes in plants and animals and ways they survive
  Evaluate how forms of energy effect matter
• Synthesize how heat energy moves, changes matter, and is measured
• Differentiate between advantages and disadvantages of various energy sources
• Create a model of the water cycle
• Identify effects of pollution and methods of conservation

HEALTH

•  Learn the basic systems of the human body
• Recognize the importance of exercise, rest, and proper nutrition for a healthy body
• Learn techniques to handle food and medicines safely
• Develop an awareness of consumer health issues
• Learn about how diseases are transmitted and how to control the spread of diseases

 VISUAL ARTS

• Increase proficiency in use of art tools
• Use the elements principles of art and design to describe and create art
• Know that shapes take up space and accurate shapes create realistic representations
• Categorize colors into groups
• Understand the function of art through examination of historical and cultural contexts
• Use symmetrical and radial balance
• Create unity through repetition, line, color, and shape
• Recognize the relationship between texture and pattern
• Compare and contrast historical and cultural contexts in art

  MUSIC

• Develop singing voice with repertory songs and play simple melodies and accompaniments on classroom instruments
• Identify lines and spaces of the treble staff by letter name
• Expand musical score reading by defining time signatures, first and second endings, codas, and dynamic levels
• Introduce half and whole rests and dotted half notes
• Study instrument families with differentiation between brass and woodwinds
• Sing PA Dutch folk songs
• Follow conductor instructions and cues while performing

PHYSICAL EDUCATION

• Combine skills and concepts for purpose of rhythmic communication and expression
• Apply simple offensive and defensive game strategies
• Engage in movement skill sand fitness activities
• Understand how exercise affects heart rate
• Exhibit good health, safety, and conflict resolution practices during sports and game

LIBRARY

• Identify various genres
• Determine the type of information needed (fact vs. opinion)
• Expand a list of possible sources to answer an information need
• Select best sources based on accessibility Develop additional search strategies using the library catalog
• Locate and access search information from print and electronic resources
• Identify examples of informational formats
• Develop note-taking strategies by writing facts beginning with verbs
• Cite sources of information