Grade Three
Language Arts
Memory, Writing and Spelling Skills. Given oral presentations of Ancient Cultures I entitled The Fertile Crescent and the Earliest Civilizations, From Nomadic to Agrarian Culture and the Israelities stories and nature stories, students will be able to recall and retell the main sequence and the details of the story on successive days. Stories are told every two to three days and are 15 to 20 minutes in length. Stories told daily are concluded in 2-3 day intervals. Students will actively participate in class discussions using clear and specific language to communicate ideas concerning the material that we are covering such as house building, farming and gardening to demonstrate verbal skills and understanding. Students will listen responsively and respectfully to other’s points of view. (Learning additional social skills.) Students will use appropriate grammar, word choice and phrasing while retelling the story. Given oral recitation of poetry, verses and regular practice of play performances children will develop dictation, vocal clarity and spoken expression. Children will perform the verses and plays at informal recitals for other classes and formal presentations (e.g., assemblies, festivals, class play) for parents throughout the year. Given daily practice of handwriting through the creating of their own books, the children will improve their printing and cursive skills. In addition, the children will write their own compositions and keep a weekly journal with emphasis placed on sentence structure, grammar, punctuation, capitalization and spelling skills. The children will generate and organize ideas for writing, revise work by combining sentences, adding details to support the content and clarify when necessary to make the meaning clear to the reader. The children will write letters to reinforce the form used in letter writing learned the previous year. Given activities and games in large and small groups, children will learn basic punctuation including initial capitalization, periods, and question marks. Through practice writing and dictations the children will learn the difference between a simple statement and a simple question. Given class activities such as blackboard games and dictation, children develop simple spelling skills of sight words, basic reading vocabulary words, and word families. The children will also keep a “spelling word” book where spelling is practiced as well as phonics. Students will practice handwriting skills.
Reading. Given games in daily dictations, the children will practice and review phonics and further develop decoding and encoding skills. Students will use appropriate grammar, word choice and pacing while retelling the stories. Both choral and partner reading will be introduced. Students will develop increasing fluency in oral reading. Students will display comprehension of orally read material. Students will increase in sustaining silent reading comprehension skills. Given all the above, students will exhibit “approach” behaviors as stated in curriculum grade two.
Mathematics
Computation. Given written practice problems, children will demonstrate proficiency in borrowing and carrying with two- and three-digit numbers. They will demonstrate this skill by working problems out at the blackboard or using manipulatives while explaining the process they are using. Given written practice problems, children will add and subtract three-digit numbers with regrouping. Given playful and practical exercises to work out in class, the children will learn standard and metric units of measuring length, time, weight/mass and volume/capacity. Children will memorize equivalent measurements in length, liquid, weight, time and money and be able to apply this knowledge to solving written and oral measurement problems. Given written practice problems and games, the children will learn to check their own and other children’s addition, subtraction, multiplication and division using a different process (e.g., checking addition with subtraction or multiplication, if applicable, or checking division with multiplication). Given written problems and problems to do at the blackboard, the children will do simple division problems with remainders, using problems with single-digit divisors and double- and triple-digit dividends. They will increase thier knowledge of “division tables.”
Concepts. Given games, rhythmical exercises and written practice, the children will review and further develop all skills learned previously with emphasis placed on all four processes. The following skills will be reviewed: place value number patterns, multiplication tables through 12’s, word problems and mental arithmetic. Through oral presentations of the history of the measurement of time and the making of such things as a sundial, water clock and sand timer, the children will learn how the measurement of time has developed. Given activities such as the making of a clock and a calendar, if not already done in Grade 2, they will develop a greater sense of time. They will learn to count by 5’s and 10’s in learning to read a clock. Given games and activities using appropriate manipulatives, the children will read, write, compare and round off four-digit whole numbers for building the concept of estimation. Given real-life situations (e.g., house building, cooking, baking, handcrafts) the children will apply problem-solving strategies using estimation, mental math and other manipulatives.
Social Sciences
Given stories, discussion and model building, children will be able to write about and explain how primitive houses were built. Given field trips to construction sites, drawing a floor plan and the opportunity to design their “ideal house,” the children will be able to demonstrate a basic understanding of what is involved in modern house building. Given the opportunity to build a simple structure, they will learn about laying a foundation, framing and finishing a shed or some other similar structure. Given opportunities to illustrate and write about how Native Americans lived and used the resources available to them in their environment, the children will demonstrate an understanding of the culture of Native Americans. Given discussions regarding activities such as raising silkworms, sheep shearing and felting the children will illustrate and write in their main lesson books explanations and essays on the origin of fibers. Given visits to local farms and crafts people, the children will be able to discuss and write about how fibers become clothing. Given the opportunity to clean, card, spin and weave wool, the children will demonstrate basic skills in working with natural fibers. Given visits to local farms, caring for the animals on the farms, preparing and planting their own garden, building and caring for a compost pile, writing and illustrating a book on farming and gardening, the children will be able to discuss and write essays about land cultivation and animal husbandry.
Science
Given class study and discussions about the interdependency of man and domesticated farm animals, students will write and illustrate text related to farm animal study. Given opportunities to visit a working farm and opportunities to participate in farm life, children will demonstrate an understanding of farm life through writing essays about their experiences and participating in class discussions about their experiences. Students will write and illustrate texts about their farm experiences. Given class discussions and study, students will study techniques of plant cultivation, old and new. From this study they will write and illustrate main lesson books related to farm crop cultivation. Given opportunities for nature walks and observation of nature, students will examine and observe the changes in nature as the seasons change. Given nature stories, they will develop their observation and perceptual skills.
