Becoming a third grader is an important milestone in any child’s education. It’s the time when they start to learn and grow, both academically and socially. This is a year of fun exploration and great discoveries. Children who were previously very concrete thinkers are steadily becoming more open to the abstract. Applying the skills they learned in grades 1 and 2, students now start working more independently rather than working with explicit instructions from their teachers.
The Third Grade curriculum builds on the skills learned in earlier grades and as with every passing grade level, the work becomes more challenging. Students will read more complex texts, write longer essays, learn about different types of governments, and explore fractions and other states of matter. They will learn more about the Catholic faith, our community and our world.
In Language Arts, students will start writing paragraphs and summaries, doing research projects, learning about different types of text features, structures and genres; including historical fiction, informational text and poetry. In Science, they will focus on a wide range of hands-on investigations of structures of life, motion and matter, as well as water and climate. In Social Studies, we will be doing in-depth studies of the city of Seattle, the country of China, and the continent of Africa.
In Math, students will continue to use the Math in Focus curriculum to learn multiplication and division facts, solve word problems and discover every day applications where we can apply our math skills in order to solve problems that students may face in real life. Students will also learn cursive using the Handwriting Without Tears curriculum. In Religion, students will be exploring Scripture, the life of Jesus Christ, the Seven Sacraments, and the community of Christ’s disciples and saints. They will also learning to live the Catholic faith through daily prayer and service to one another.
In terms of Service, for the Third Grade Service Project, students will be partnering with our PreSchool and Pre-K classes to assist WestSide Baby, through collecting and donating previously owned items for children and infants in need.
Homework
The average time for homework will be approximately 30-40 minutes each night. Students are expected to read for at least 20 of those minutes and to track their daily reading on the Weekly Reading Log. The Weekly Reading Log is sent home at the beginning of each week and is due on the last day of the week. Students will also have spelling, math, science/social studies/religion, and writing/grammar assignments throughout the week. In addition, long term projects will also be assigned throughout the year.
Birthdays
We love celebrating birthdays! Please let me know at least a day ahead of time if your child will be bringing a treat so I can plan ahead. The best times for sharing treats are during lunch or in the afternoon. If a birthday falls on the weekend or school holiday, we can celebrate on Friday or Monday. For summer birthdays, we like to celebrate ½ birthdays.
