3rd Grade Curriculum Information:RELIGION AND MEMORIZATION
The “Learn by Heart” curriculum, by Rev. Peter C. Bender, is used at St. Paul’s Lutheran School. This program runs in a 3-year cycle, the exact scope of lessons for a particular year will depend upon whether we are in year A, B, or C. The curriculum is worship-based and follows Biblical history closely. Throughout the three-year cycle, the lessons are usually taught in historical sequence. There are exceptions during the seasons of Advent, Christmas, Lent, and Easter, when we depart from the historical sequence in order to follow the life of Christ during those times of the congregation’s observance of the church year.
Chapel is held briefly each morning. The children are taught how to worship with use of liturgical elements that they will also encounter when they attend the main services of the congregation on the weekends. Memory Work is coordinated with all of the grades exposed to the same Scripture verses, hymn verses, and Catechism portions. The amount of recitation required varies from grade to grade by what is age appropriate. After each brief Chapel service, the 3rd grade discusses the Biblical account used that day. At this time questions are asked and answered, and discussion is held that is pertinent to that lesson. Memory Work is reviewed with a handwriting activity.
ADOPT-A-GRANDPARENT
Once a month the third grade visits a local nursing home and is paired up with a senior citizen. Students visit with these residents and do an activity together.
ART
Students experiment and explore their creativity through a variety of media and technique. The third grade projects are organized around the concepts of line, design, color and shape. We also have an Art Appreciation program, which features an artist-of-the-month and one well-known copy of work by that artist. A brief lesson focuses on the artist’s history and the technique used in the painting, and concludes with an activity which relates to some aspect of that piece of art.
CHOIR/MUSIC
Second, Third, Fourth, Fifth, and Sixth grade students are all members of the Jubilate Choir. The children are taught basic vocal technique and sing in unison and two-part harmony. Participation in worship services provides opportunity for students to serve God through the gift of music.
COMPUTER
In third grade, various software programs are used to reinforce concepts taught in other curriculum areas such as reading and math.
MATH
The third grade uses the school-wide Saxon Math curriculum. In this level there is a daily math meeting which reviews the concepts of time, money, sequence, and a problem of the day. Besides concentrating upon the usual addition, subtraction, multiplication and division lessons, children learn time, measurement, square roots, problem solving, sequence, prime numbers, and decimals (through the tenth and hundredth places). The strength of the program is in the continuous review, and the fact that no concept is taught in isolation and then abandoned. Once a concept is taught, it continues to be used throughout the year.
PHYSICAL EDUCATION
Large motor skills are still developing in growing third grade students. The class provides opportunity for students to refine these skills and adapt them to specific games and sports. Physical fitness is emphasized with brief daily exercise drills at the start of the class. In the fall and spring, students are evaluated with the National Youth Physical Fitness Program of the Marine Corps League, a physical fitness program designed for ages 5 through high school and college.
SCIENCE
The third grade science curriculum provides opportunities for students to investigate, observe, and draw conclusions about the world around them. We use the Concordia Edition of Discovery Works, published by Silver Burdett Ginn, Inc. Topics available for study include life cycles of plants and animals, sun, moon, and the Earth, forms of energy, Earth’s water, and roles of living things. Each year the students study a special unit on either the rain forest or the ocean that was developed here at St. Paul’s Lutheran School in addition to the regular curriculum.
SOCIAL STUDIES
The third grade social studies centers around communities: Native American, Jamestown colony, Spanish mission, early U.S. communities and colonies, and the economy of communities. The text, Communities: Adventures in Time and Place, is published by Macmillan/McGraw-Hill and is endorsed by the National Geographic Society.
LANGUAGE ARTS
English
Third graders benefit from the very thorough Shurley English curriculum. By Christmas, students are well acquainted with all eight parts of speech in the English language. They learn to classify each word in three different sentence patterns throughout the school year. (This is similar to the diagramming of sentences that was once a significant part of English instruction in the United States.) All of this knowledge is then applied to various forms of writing: the expository paragraph, persuasive paragraph, and descriptive paragraph. Opportunities for creative writing are also available.
Penmanship
Third grade students begin learning cursive writing. All of the lower and upper case letters are introduced and practiced. Proper manuscript techniques are also reviewed throughout the year.
Reading
In the third grade Open Court reading program, students are exposed to various genre: realism, fiction, poetry, biography, folktales, and more. Selections are grouped thematically and are organized to improve the students’ vocabulary, comprehension, study skills and application of literature. Skills such as summarizing, identifying main ideas and supporting details, sequencing, inferring, identifying cause and effect, and phonics are taught and practiced.
To enhance the curriculum, the Accelerated Reading program is used. Silent reading is required each day in books that the children may choose for themselves, according to their individual reading abilities and interests. Computerized comprehension tests are taken on each book completed, points are earned, and progress is tracked. Effort is made to help the students improve their reading skills while developing a lifelong love of reading.
Phonics
Third graders continue to grow in the phonetic program they learned in second grade. The Saxon Phonics and Spelling curriculum includes such aspects as print awareness, phonemic awareness, decoding skills, fluency, spelling patterns, support for comprehension, and vocabulary development.
Spelling
The spelling curriculum uses word lists based on sound patterns. The lists include words which are educationally appropriate and commonly used. Activities built around these lists help the students use prefixes, suffixes, roots, and word relationships to spell new words. Cumulative systematic review and assessment help the students retain their instruction.
HEALTH
The third grade curriculum, Health, Safety, & Manners, by ABeka, includes topics concerning nutrition, the human body and its care, safety, manners, and good health practices.
SPANISH
The third grade curriculum, Elementary Spanish by Northern Arizona University, is designed to develop a functional use of Spanish for communicative purposes and to increase student knowledge of Hispanic cultures. The five units studied are: The Family, Services in a Community, The School, Types of Dwellings in Cities, and Directions and Geographic Locations.
