Third Grade

Students continue to grow in their comprehension skills.  They learn more about character and setting, sequencing, steps in a process, compare and contrast, classifying and categorizing.  As they practice reading both informational and literary texts they learn to use prior knowledge as well as predicting and confirming their predictions to better comprehend the increasingly complex text.

Students increase their vocabulary skills through the study of homographs, compound words, synonyms, prefixes, and suffixes.

Students expand their writing skills by producing informational, opinion and narrative pieces.

Mathematics instruction is focused on four critical areas: (1) developing understanding of multiplication and division and strategies for multiplication and division within 100; (2) developing understanding of fractions, especially unit fractions (fractions with numerator 1); (3) developing understanding of the structure of rectangular arrays and of area; and (4) describing and analyzing two-dimensional shapes.

In the Third Grade, Life Science unit students study how living things adapt to land and water environments. The study how environmental changes impact all living organisms.

In their Earth Science unit, third graders learn about the solar system. In the Physical Science unit, they are introduced to the topics of matter, energy, and light.

Students will begin to study our state. They will learn about land and water in California as well as study about the California Indians both in the past and present time.  They will study how rules and laws are made and learn about the economy of our region.

Students in the 3rd-grade use audio-editing software to create their own digital audio-books.  They continue to code with code.org and they continue to write digital stories.  Students also use robots to see the outcomes of various commands and prompts.