Philosophy: We are committed to creating communities of third graders with the responsibility, social skills, life skills, and academic understandings necessary to be successful learners in all subject areas.

Grade Level Outcomes:

Reading: All 3rd grade students will evidence one year’s academic growth as measured by the district assessment in applying vocabulary, phonics skills, and print concepts in order to read and comprehend written selections.

Math: All Camelview third grade students will develop and apply place value and estimation skills to hundred and hundredths place value in order to solve addition, subtraction, multiplication, division and money problems more efficiently as measured by the Madison School District post-test and the A.I.M.S.

Advise to Parents:

Your enthusiasm for school will reflect in your child’s learning. Show that you value education by:

1. checking homework daily
2. actively reading with your child
3. attending school functions, especially parent teacher conferences
4. asking your child questions about their school day.

Curriculum

Reading: This year our third graders will focus on reading to learn rather than learning to read. We will do this by setting reading goals, finding ways to make more time for reading in our lives, and how to sustain our reading for a longer time.
Comprehension and fluency are important skills that successful readers use while reading. Our students will learn how to visualize while reading, by making a picture in their minds based on what they read. They will also learn how to ask themselves questions about text and justify their thinking using examples from text.
Daily reading is crucial for student success. Third graders should be spending 20-30 minutes reading daily. Visit our local library every few weeks so you will always have a great selection of books available for your child.

Writing: Writing is closely connected to reading. We write for many purposes and audiences. This year our students will develop fluency in their writing using the Six Traits of Writing. These include content/ideas, sentence fluency, word choice, voice, organization, and conventions (mechanics). We will focus on different genres for a specific time and learn how these traits affect the way a writer writes. We will do this by analyzing authors who are strong in one or more of these traits and learn to apply it to our own writing.

Social Studies: Third grade social studies includes learning about important places and events. By using maps we will learn about different places around the world, their culture, and their people. We will focus on teaching the history and purpose of various holidays throughout the year. Each classroom will also have a Junior Achievement volunteer (a community professional) teach a unit on business and econonomics.

Math: In our 3rd grade classroom, we explore the world of math as we solve problems posed in real-world contexts, engage in hands-on experiences involving manipulatives (tools such as cubes, base ten blocks, and pattern blocks), through sharing our ideas and strategies, and as we talk about how we come to conclusions and answers.

Activities that we work on and revisit together throughout the year include:

Identifying, writing, comparing, & ordering 6-digit whole numbers
Adding and subtracting three-digit numbers
Building arrays and relating them to multiplication facts
Representing and presenting data
Solving equations with missing variables
Determining relationships between 2-D and 3-D shapes

We also problem solve together daily. I encourage students to use a variety of strategies to solve addition, subtraction, multiplication, and division word problems. Students solve problems using strategies that make sense to them based on the given numbers in the problem and the problem context. Students use pictures, numbers, and/or words to represent their own thinking processes on paper. We discuss our solutions in both small and whole group settings in order to solidify our own understandings and to learn from one another.

For more information about our math curriculum and materials,
please visit the Arizona Department of Education, Investigations, or Harcourt Math

Science: This year, we will explore our world through three science units. Structures of Life, Physics of Sound, and Earth Materials are our three science units. For more information about our science units, please visit the FOSS website at Foss Science