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3

Third Grade



The third grade curriculum takes a step up, strongly emphasizing the application of skills developed in earlier grades. The third grade curriculum provides more challenge, and while teacher supervision continues to be important, now the students are provided with many opportunities to learn about choices, and thus increased responsibility for the quality of their work, and more accountability for behavior.

The Third Grade Curriculum

Religion

Students continue in their Catholic faith formation, studying the seven sacraments, our church community, and its leaders. Through the lens of the Golden Rule, students examine how we interact in our classrooms, our school, our families, and our communities.

Language Arts and Reading

 Students continue to develop their reading skills through a variety of genres. They make predictions, summarize reading, and answer questions that require analysis, synthesis, and evaluation. Their writing should reflect a growing understanding of formal sentence structure, the four basic types of sentences, and how to use each sentence in written paragraphs. Major emphasis is placed on learning to explore and through the use of dictionaries, glossaries, and other reference books.

Handwriting

 The main focus now becomes the correct formation and joining of cursive letters.

Mathematics

Third graders continue using the Saxon Math program to master math concepts. The Numbers unit covers number sense and numeration, concepts of whole number operations, whole number computation, fractions and decimals, and money. In Geometry students are taught Geometry and spatial relationships and measurement. Data analysis, statistics, and probability are covered in the Data Analysis unit. The Patterns, Algebra and Functions are also taught in third grade math. Using the Saxon method, students are taught a new concept daily followed by review and reinforcement of previously learned concepts.

Science

 The third grade curriculum is based on the National Science Education Standards with an emphasis on "Science as Inquiry." The scientific method consisting of purpose, research, hypothesis, experiment, analysis, and conclusion is used. Our curriculum covers the study of plants, the solar system, simple machines, and animal habitats.

Social Science

 The goal of our curriculum is to prepare students to participate in society with the knowledge, skills and civic values to enable them to be actively and constructively involved. Our curriculum focuses on map study skills and an in-depth study of the regions of the United States.