Third Grade Experience

Teachers build classroom communities of readers and writers who love books and see purpose in their reading and writing. Classrooms are full of high-quality literature, and students explore a variety of genres, topics, and audiences in both reading and writing. In both disciplines, teachers model the skills and strategies that skilled readers and writers use. As students continue to learn and reinforce foundational literacy skills, our older students begin to work intentionally on comprehension skills. Understanding characters, problems and conflicts, retelling or summarizing, visualizing setting, synthesizing information, and determining theme are some of the key elements in developing strong comprehension skills. Language arts instruction is highly differentiated with students working in small groups, partnerships, and 1:1 with teachers.

Units of Study in Writing

• Narrative—writing detailed, character-driven stories
• Information—writing to teach
• Opinion—writing to affect others
• Fiction—adapting fairytales

Units of Study in Reading

• Mystery
• Nonfiction—grasping main ideas and text structures
• Character studies
• Research clubs—reading to learn
• Poetry—visualizing like a poet

Country Day’s math program is designed to build fluent mathematicians, skilled and perseverant problem solvers and creative thinkers. Our teaching is based on the Math in Focus curriculum, and the core focus in the Lower School is on building a deep understanding of number sense, operations, and computation. Our students learn not just how to solve rote problems, but how to think mathematically and tackle real-world, rigorous mathematical problems.

Skills and Concepts

• Adding and subtracting within 10,000

• Building fluency in multiplication and division facts

• Applying mental math strategies

• Describing and manipulating fractions

• Applying transformations and symmetry in geometric shapes

• Identifying units and tools to measure length, mass, and volume

• Collecting, interpreting, and representing data using tables and graphs

The Lower School social studies program focuses on the study of people in relation to their past, present, and future, their environment, and their society. Our curriculum encourages curiosity and helps students develop an understanding of a rapidly changing world. Students become aware of their personal and cultural identities, and they acquire the skills and knowledge needed to actively participate in their classroom, school, community, and world.

Units of Study

• Unit 1: Country Studies
• Unit 2: Economics and Global Economics
• Unit 3: Exploration

Lower School science focuses on engaging in investigation and discovery through the scientific method in Country Day’s state-of-the-art science lab. An integrated STEM program brings together engineering and inquisitive minds to design innovative, sustainable solutions to real world problems.

In third grade, students practice observing, predicting, inferring, data collection and analysis, the design process, and the communication of data and results. They cover the physical, life, and earth sciences, specifically force and motion/simple machines, plants, animal food chains/webs and adaptations, geology, magnifiers and microscopes.

The physical education curriculum focuses on the physical, mental, and social emotional growth of our students. The curriculum focuses on developing and maintaining a physically active and healthy lifestyle in addition to developing gross motor, body control, and spatial awareness skills. Students pursue personal fitness goals and an understanding of skills, strategies, and rules of individual and team sports and activities. Problem-solving strategies, leadership, and sportsmanship are developed through an environment of cooperative learning.

Our goals in Lower School are to expose students to language and culture, instill a love for the language, develop an appreciation for the larger world, and build cultural competencies. Students are exposed to French and Spanish in JK through first grade. In second grade, students choose one target language with the goal of developing a Novice Low proficiency level (based on ACTFL Standards) by the end of fourth grade.

Third graders continue to increase their vocabulary on different topics of interest and age appropriate through the four language skills: listening, reading, pronouncing, and speaking while developing basic writing kills. Students communicate using memorized sentence and question patterns and are encouraged to communicate in the target language during class.

Our third grade Design Lab learning experiences are created to develop skill, allow for application of new learning, and set design challenges that work to empower students to creatively communicate and solve problems with empathy. 

Skills in engineering, coding, robotics, 3D printing, and multi-media design are reinforced in mini projects and provide opportunities for student choice and voice. 

Design challenges in third grade begin to incorporate interviews into the design thinking process. These interviews help students develop skill in designing solutions tailored to specific user needs and wants.

Through the library curriculum, we strive to instill the joy and value of reading, provide access to diverse information and ideas, and equip students with the skills and knowledge necessary to access, evaluate, and apply new learning in both personal and academic pursuits. Students receive whole-class, small-group, and one-on-one instruction and practice their skills through authentic activities and research. 

In third grade, students learn how to locate all materials in the library, search the online catalog for books of interest, use advanced reading strategies for comprehension, conduct research using all steps of the research cycle, record information by taking notes, use age-appropriate websites and databases as research resources, and cite sources.

Art
Third graders explore a multitude of artists, genres, and techniques using a range of artistic mediums. Art enables students to express emotion, communicate ideas, and find their creative voice.

Drama
Our third-grade drama curriculum focuses on creating characters and making bold choices through the art of improvisation while strengthening collaboration, communication, and creative problem solving skills. Their production offers challenging acting roles, solo and duet singing opportunities, and is a cross-curricular connection to the fairy tale writing unit that third grade students dive into with their homeroom classes!

Music
Third grade students explore music with vocal warm-ups, singing an array of songs, playing unpitched and Orff instruments, and studying music theory. They also begin the Recorder Karate program where every student has an opportunity to play the recorder and earn belts for the songs they play. Third graders also study international folk music and dance, integrating and enriching their classroom curriculum.