Third Grade Curriculum

Art

The elementary visual arts curriculum helps students understand how media, technique and process are used to create works of art; how artworks are structured; art has a variety of functions; how to identify, analyze and select subject matter, symbols and ideas for personal/cultural expression; how historical and cultural contexts provide meaning for works of art, and to assess the merits of their own artworks and the artworks of others.

Resources
Adventures in Art, Davis

Topics

• Flexibility and problem-solving in two-and three-dimensional artworks
• Different media and techniques in artworks from around the world
• Creating art which communicates ideas based on imagination, recall and observation
• How materials, techniques and processes used in artworks create different visual effects and affect viewer responses
• Color schemes
• Design principles
• Examining artworks and describing how images convey ideas
• Using the elements and principles of design to communicate ideas
• Different artistic interpretations and themes
• Creating artworks using a variety of subject matter, symbols and themes
• Ideas and symbols in artwork from various cultures
• Recognizing selected works of art as belonging to particular cultures and times
• Creating multi-disciplinary works of art (for example, creating visuals for a poem)

Guidance

Guidance, which is integrated into other curriculum areas, helps establish goals, expectations, support systems and experience for all students. It is designed to enhance student learning by helping students acquire and use lifelong learning skills in three broad areas of development: academic, career and personal/social. The curriculum employs developmentally appropriate strategies enhance academics, provide career awareness, encourage self-awareness, foster interpersonal communication skills and convey life success skills for all students. The guidance and health curricula complement each other to provide knowledge and skills in the area of drug prevention.

Resources
Variety of district-selected materials

Topics
Students will acquire knowledge and skills in the following areas:

• Improved academic self-concept
• Improved learning
• Plan to achieve goals
• School success
• Career awareness
• Organization and time management
• Self-knowledge
• Interpersonal relations
• Personal safety

Health

Development of self-awareness (emotionally, socially and physically) and the best ways of keeping well (healthy decision-making) are emphasized. Topics introduced in the first years are reviewed and discussed in more depth each year along with new topics. The health and guidance curricula complement each other to provide knowledge and skills in the area of drug prevention.

Resources
Your Health, Harcourt, Inc.

Topics
Mental/Emotional/Social

• Character
• Stress
• Feelings
• Conflict resolution
• Respect
• Friendship
• Cooperation

Chemical Health

• Ways to say NO
• Medicine
• Inhalents

Safety and First Aid

• Bus safety
• Pedestrian safety
• Playground safety
• Self-protection

Body Systems

• Muscular
• Nervous
• Digestive
• Circulatory
• Respiratory
• Organs

Environmental Health

• Pollution
• Ozone
• Components of a health community
• Health impact of pollutants
• Noise pollution
• Second-hand smoke
• Water Pollution
• Skin and eye care

Decision-Making

• Choosing healthy behaviors (decision-making model
• Reinforcing healthy decisions (refusal skills)

Language Arts

Reading, writing, listening, speaking, spelling and handwriting are all-important components of language arts.  Skills and strategies in each area are modeled, taught and practiced, taking into account the unique needs of each learner.  Knowledge and skills are acquired through connected experiences between home, school and community.  Students read from a variety of texts, including fiction (short stories and whole books), poetry and nonfiction (textbooks, newspapers and magazines).  Students read (or are read to) and write daily.

Resources

• Guided Reading Resources
• Classroom Libraries
• Invitations to Literacy, Houghton Mifflin
• Handwriting–Zaner-Bloser
• Word Study-District developed

Topics

Reading

• Fiction and nonfiction materials
• Using context clues to determine meaning of unknown words
• Understanding ideas not explicitly stated
• Making predictions and drawing conclusions based on information in the selection
• Distinguishing between fact and opinion
• Determining the author’s purpose
• Identifying figurative language
• Using graphophonic (sounds), syntactic (language) and semantic (meaning) strategies to understand text
• Identifying elements of a story
• Summarizing fiction and nonfiction

Writing

• Planning, composing and revising pieces of writing
• Editing written work for grammar, capitalization, punctuation, spelling and sentence structure
• Writing narratives, descriptive pieces, persuasive and expository essays
• Writing letters and reports

Speaking and Listening

• Summarizing ideas and identifying tone
• Teaching someone how to perform an action or create a product
• Giving an informal presentation
• Listening to understand a presentation
• Word Study
• Finding the correct spelling of an unknown word
• Recognizing misspelled words
• Patterns within words
• Spelling frequently used words correctly in everyday writing
• Vocabulary development

Handwriting

• Using cursive writing to form upper and lower case letters

While connecting mathematical experiences to the world around them, young children are challenged to become increasingly sophisticated in dealing with mathematical concepts. The elementary mathematics curriculum builds on students' math understanding, skills, and proficiency at each grade level, as appropriate, by integrating concepts such as number and operations, algebra, geometry, measurement, and data analysis and probability. Students also engage in problem solving, reasoning, and communicating ideas while making connections to the world around them.

Resources
Scott Foresman/Addison Wesley Mathematics
Investigations in Number, Data, and Space - Dale Seymour Publishers

Topics
NUMBERS AND OPERATIONS - Understanding of and proficiency with counting, numbers and arithmetic, as well as an understanding of number systems and their structures

• Place value
• Multiplication and division
• Computational fluency
• Increased understanding of base-ten number system
• Fractions, decimals and percents
• Numbers less than zero

ALGEBRA - Relationships among quantities, including ways of representing mathematical relationships and expression of relationships by using symbolic notation

• Identify, build and represent numerical and geometric patterns with tables or symbols
• Make predictions based on relationships between varying quantities
• Use graphs to describe patterns and make predictions
• Explore number properties
• Use invented notation, standard symbols and variables to express a pattern, generalization or situation

GEOMETRY - Geometric shapes and structures, and how to analyze their characteristics and relationships

• Properties and classification of geometric objects
• Relationships between geometric shapes
• Motion, location and orientation
• Increase capacity to visualize geometric relationships
• Make, test and justify conjectures about geometric relationships

MEASUREMENT - The assignment of a numerical value to an attribute of an object; understanding what a measurable attribute is, becoming familiar with the units and processes used in measuring attributes

• Use concepts and tools of measurement to collect data, and to describe and quantify the world
• Measure attributes such as area, perimeter and angle
• Increase focus on degree of accuracy and variety of measurement tools
• Begin to develop and use formulas for the measurement of certain attributes

DATA ANALYSIS AND PROBABILITY - How to collect, organize and display data in graphs and charts that will be useful in answering questions; methods of analyzing data, and of making inferences and conclusions from data

• See a set of data as a whole, describe its shape and compare data sets
• Describe similarities and differences between data sets
• Formulate conclusions and arguments based on data
• Consider data sets as samples from a larger population
• Use language and symbols to describe simple situations involving probability

PROBLEM SOLVING - Engaging in a task for which the solution method is not known in advance

• Solve problems that arise in mathematics and other contexts
• Apply and adapt a variety of appropriate strategies to solve problems
• Monitor and reflect on the process of mathematical problem solving
• Develop and carry out plans to solve mathematical problems
  

Music

The music program focuses on making music, and listening to and responding to music others have produced. Students sing, play instruments, move and create music. They learn to read music, and analyze and evaluate the music of others.

Resource
Making Music, Silver Burdett

Topics

• Singing partner songs, rounds and canons
• Singing a varied repertoire of songs with healthy vocal technique
• Playing simple melodies on classroom instruments
• Singing and identifying the pentatonic scale
• Improvising simple melodies
• Reading and writing more complex rhythms
• Classifying by family the most common orchestral instruments
• Identifying simple meters

Physical Education

Physical education is based on learning basic movement and skills, and refining these movements and skills into specific activities. Skills include locomotor movement, non-locomotor movement, perceptual movement and manipulatives. The movements and skills are incorporated into game situation. Examples of the core units are basketball, bowling, floor hockey, tumbling and stunts, rhythms, soccer, softball, touch/flag football, track & field, volleyball and fitness.

Topics

• Physical activities that develop motor skills and physical fitness
• Rules, skills, strategies and team-building associated with individual and team activities
• Age-appropriate physical fitness
• Safety and etiquette in physical activities

Science

The science curriculum provides opportunities for students to learn science concepts through hands-on activities. Students learn to observe, compare, collect data, organize and analyze information, and communicate what they have learned. The investigations focus on physical and life science concepts.

Resources
Full Option Science System (FOSS) kits

Topics
Magnetism and Electricity (physical science)

• Permanent magnetism, electrical circuits and electromagnetism
• Interactions of a magnet with different objects and materials
• The force of attraction between magnets and different objects
• Testing objects for the ability to conduct electricity
• Electromagnets
• Recording and communicating observations and investigations

Structures of Life (life science)

• Properties of seeds and fruits, and the structures and behavior of crayfish
• Sorting and comparing seeds and investigating the effect of water on seeds over time
• Comparing crayfish to other animals

Earth Materials (earth science)

• Observations about rocks
• How rock materials separate and settle in water
• Separating one ingredient from a mixture
• Sorting objects according to properties, recording and comparing observations

Measurement (scientific reasoning)

• Measuring length, mass and capacity
• Recording, comparing and communicating measurements of a variety of objects

Social Studies

The social studies curriculum provides the opportunity for each student to acquire knowledge and develop skills necessary for social, political and economic participation in a diverse, interdependent and changing world.

Resources
District-created units of study
Variety of district-selected books

Topics
Where Am I? Our Local Community

• How people depend on each other in communities
• Economic terms: scarcity, needs, wants, production, interdependence, goods and services, opportunity cost
• How a region changes over time (research survey, observation of community, and compare and contrast chart)
• Comparing rural and urban environments by defining and identifying natural resources
• How human alterations of physical environments have had positive and negative consequences
• Interpreting pictures and using charts, graphs and tables to display data
• Environmental issues in the local community

A Long Time Ago is a Lot Like Today - The Ojibway

• How the process to achieve harmony and balance plays a vital role in American Indian philosophy and in the daily lives of American Indians
• How human beings from different cultures have adapted to and modified their environment
• Unique features of family structures and relationships of American Indians in Minnesota
• How institutions such as family and religion help meet basic needs, today and in the past

Origins and Immigration

• A global perspective of the world as ethnically and culturally diverse
• Individual and group differences locally and nationally
• How human beings from diverse cultures have migrated, adapted to and modified their environments
• Individual rights, freedoms and responsibilities that protect human dignity

Farming

• Immigrant migration to farmland
• Comparison of farms past and present
• Crops grown on Minnesota farms
• Production of corn from farm to processing
• What makes a cheeseburger
• African Americans in agriculture