Third Grade

Students in third grade continue to develop essential skills in communication, reading, and writing. Explicit, systematic instruction in phonics provides students with ongoing practice to master complex spellings for consonants and vowel sounds, blending sounds together in multisyllabic words to read fluently. Instruction begins to shift from phonics to word analysis, providing students with practice using prefixes, suffixes, and root words to identify and read meaningful parts of words. Students use the writing process to plan, draft, revise, and edit writing in a variety of forms, expressing connected and developed ideas in a paragraph. Students build knowledge, develop vocabulary, and deepen comprehension through close reading of complex text centered around content-integrated units of study.

The third-grade standards place emphasis on developing an understanding of, and solving problems that involve multiplication and division through 10 × 10 (fluency and automatic recall is not expected until the end of fourth grade). Students will apply knowledge of place value and the properties of addition and multiplication as strategies for solving problems. Concrete models and pictorial representations will be used to introduce addition and subtraction with fractions and the concept of probability as the measurement of chance. Students will use standard units (U.S. Customary and metric) to measure temperature, length, and liquid volume. Properties of shapes, points, line segments, rays, angles, vertices, and lines will be explored and students will identify polygons with 10 or fewer sides, combine and subdivide polygons, and name the resulting polygon(s). Students will continue to develop more sophisticated ways to communicate and represent their mathematical thinking. Problem solving, reasoning, exploration, and connections are essential components of instruction so that students develop a deep understanding of concepts.

Interactions in Our World

The focus of science in third grade is interactions in our world. Students continue their study of forces and matter by learning about simple machines and by examining the interactions of materials in water. They also look at how plants and animals, including humans, are constantly interacting with both the living and nonliving aspects of the environment. This includes how adaptations satisfy the life needs of plants and animals and the importance of water, soil, and the sun in the survival of plants and animals. Throughout the elementary years, students will develop scientific skills, supported by mathematics and computational thinking, as they learn science content. In third grade, students will develop more sophisticated skills in posing questions and predicting outcomes, planning and conducting simple investigations, collecting and analyzing data, constructing explanations, and communicating information about the natural world. Students begin to use the engineering design process to apply their scientific knowledge to solve problems.

Focus on Ancient World Cultures

The standards for third-grade students include an introduction to the heritage and contributions of the peoples of ancient China, Egypt, Greece, Rome, and the West African empire of Mali. Students continue developing map skills and demonstrate an understanding of basic economic and civics concepts. Students will examine the social, cultural, and political characteristics of major ancient world cultures. Students will recognize that many aspects of ancient cultures served as the foundation for modern governments, customs, traditions, and perspectives.