Third Grade Curriculum Language Arts Students in third grade acquire strategies that will increase their ability to read and comprehend fiction and non-fiction, including fairy tales, myths, fables, folktales and legends. The children build vocabulary (i.e. prefixes, suffixes, compound words, family words) and use comprehension strategies including predicting, summarizing, and making inferences and connections to text. Students draw from their own experiences as they learn to analyze the writing of others. Third graders learn to write a single paragraph with a topic sentence and supporting details. Small group instruction is used when students are engaged in Writer's Workshop and Guided Reading.
		Social Studies Children begin to think about continuity and change in their own locality, as well as in the nation as part of the 3rd grade social studies program. The great legacies of local, regional, national, and cultural traditions that provide memories, as well as a sense of community are introduced to students. Role-playing allows students to understand issues, such as immigration, and helps the children to discover how immigration works and how immigrants were and are incorporated into American society. Students learn to use maps, graphs, and charts to organize information about people, places and environments that have had an impact on the community. An important activity for children in grade three is the study of the topography of the San Francisco Bay Area. Native peoples who lived in this region are presented using rich resources including publications, pictures, art, folklore, and food, and through a visit to a museum of California Indian Culture. Math Third grade students learn place value while improving mastery of addition, subtraction, multiplication, and division of whole numbers. They learn their multiplication tables from 0 to 12 by memory. Students learn simple algebraic thinking, measurement, and use graphic organizers to compare information related to real life applications. Students make decisions about how to approach problems by using strategies, skills, and concepts in finding solutions. By the end of third grade, students are capable of understanding and reasoning third grade level mathematical problems. Science Third grade students use FOSS Science kits, to practice the scientific method, make predictions, investigate, experiment, and to presenting findings. They learn science process skills, such as how to observe, compare, classify, measure, interpret data, plan and conduct simple investigations, and predict and infer conclusions. In life science, students study the survival of living things (e.g. how plants grow, types of animals, and where living things are found.) In earth science, students study the solar system. In physical science, students investigate matter and energy (e.g. properties of matter, changes in matter, energy, and light). Kindergarten :: First Grade :: Second Grade :: Third Grade :: Fourth Grade :: Fifth Grade