Third Grade Curriculum Connection
October
Reading Level
Students are formatively assessed throughout the quarter using running records aligned with the Fountas and Pinnell Reading Levels. The running records will be used to guide instruction and determine students reading levels. The summative assessment (end of quarter) for reading is the determination of a student’s F&P reading level.
Literacy Block
Reading:
Mystery: Foundational Skills in Disguise provides an opportunity to hook readers into new series—many of which, at levels K-O, are mostly plot driven—while also providing children the chance to practice the foundational skills they need at the start of third grade. This unit draws on much of what has made Mystery Book Clubs a longtime favorite third grade unit. It revisits some of the foundational reading work of Building a Reading Life, and deepens students’ literal comprehension before the more interpretive and analytical comprehension work begins. Throughout this unit, teachers and students will work with many of the literal strands of the reading learning progression.
Writing:
Changing the World: Persuasive Speeches, Petitions, and Editorials -Third graders are full of opinions and are eager to persuade others. This unit channels those opinions into writing that can make a difference. In this unit, students learn to introduce topics, support these by listing reasons, using transition words to connect the various parts of their pieces and to conclude. Across the unit, there is a focus on considering audience and considering word choice in light of audience. This unit moves writers from writing opinion speeches to forming cause groups to support various causes.This unit, then has two major goals. The first is to help writers live more wide-awake lives, taking in all that is happening around them--injustices, small kindnesses, and so on--and writing about these in ways that move others to action and new thinking. The second major goal is to help writers become increasingly more adept at opinion writing in ways that provide the beginning steps for more formal essay writing.
Essential Questions: Students will keep considering… Phonics: The teacher will utilize the second quarter FHSD Phonics lessons. Students will participate in the following word work activities: ● Decoding & Encoding ● Accuracy ● Fluency ● Dictation. The phonics skills for second quarter in third grade are: ● Open and closed syllables ● Vowel team and -le syllable review ● VCe and Vowel R Control Syllable review ● Prefixes: re -back, again restore; un -not, opposite of, undo ● Derivational suffixes: -ful, -full, of; -less, without; review -ly in a manner that is ● Derivational suffixes:-ment, the act of, process of, state of; -ness, condition, state, or quality ● Syllabication and Word Attack: combined closed and silent e Syllabication and Word Attack: Two, Three, and Four Syllable Words Cursive Handwriting Teacher will pace students throughout the year through the FHSD Third Grade Cursive Handwriting Book. Interactive Vocabulary The teacher will employ a variety of strategies while teaching unit vocabulary. Strategies are based on student need and understanding and application of each term listed in the vocabulary section. Instructional strategies include: ● Organizers like concept mapping or Frayer model ● Cooperative learning to discuss meaning of the terms: think-pair-share, shoulder partner, think write ● Similarities and differences looking at similar and different words to the term Nonlinguistic representation Vocabulary: Editorial: a statement that is shared with others that presents the opinion of author Mystery: anything that is kept a secret or is unexplained or unknown. Persuasive: a piece written or spoken with the intention to convince an audience of the validity of a set of ideas-usually a particular point of view Speech: a form of expository, procedural, or persuasive text written to be spoken orally to an audience. Petition: a request made for something desired Purpose: What the writer is trying to accomplish through a piece. Most common purposes are to persuade, inform/explain, entertain, or inspire. Shades of meaning: Words that are similar in meaning, but have a subtle change in meaning Voice:The style that makes an author’s writing unique. That which conveys the author’s attitude, personality, and character.
Science
Students are expected to develop an understanding of types of organisms that lived long ago and also about the nature of their environments. Third graders are expected to develop an understanding of the idea that when the environment changes some organisms survive and reproduce, some move to new locations, some move into the transformed environment, and some die.
Essential Questions: Students will keep considering… Vocabulary: adaptation - any change in the structure or behavior of a species which helps it to become better fitted to survive and reproduce in its environment ecosystem - a community of animals and plants interacting with each other and their environment environment - the air, water, minerals, organisms, and all other external factors surrounding and affecting a given organism at any time habitat - the natural environment of an organism; place that is natural for the life and growth of an organism interdependence - when two or more organisms or people rely on each other for survival