Third Grade

banner labeled third grade

Grade Level Expectations

Reading/Language Arts

  • Uses text features to predict content and monitor comprehension.
  • Uses context clues to infer the meaning of new words, synonyms, antonyms and homophones.
  • Understands explicit and implicit ideas and information in texts.
  • Knows the difference between fact and opinion.
  • Understands the use of comparison and contrast within a selection.
  • Knows similarities and differences presented in texts.
  • Uses a variety of reference materials to gather information.
  • Understands the distinguishing features of literary texts.
  • Reads a variety of self-selected and assigned literary and informational texts.
  • Makes inferences and draws conclusions regarding story elements.
  • Constructs and effectively uses an organizational strategy for writing.
  • Constructs a document that is focused on a topic and follows a logical sequence.
  • Identifies and uses proper mechanics such as punctuation, capital letters, spelling and paragraph indentation.
  • Creates and revises a written piece with an appropriate organizational pattern, transition words, details and a variety of sentence structures.
  • Writes for a variety of occasions, audiences and purposes.
  • Uses electronic technology to create, revise, retrieve and verify information.
  • Listens and responds to a variety of oral presentations such as stories, directions and speeches.
  • Listens attentively and responds to speakers.
  • Understands the main concept and supporting details in non-print media messages.
  • Gives oral presentations for different purposes.

Math

  • Models and solves multiplication and division problems.
  • Understands that multiplication and division are inverse operations.
  • Develops an understanding of fractions and fraction equivalence.
  • Read, writes, identifies, models and com-pares common fractions including fractions greater than one.
  • Compares and orders fractions, including fractions greater than 1, using models and strategies.
  • Uses models to represent equivalent fractions, including fractions greater than 1.
  • Describes, analyzes, compares and classifies two dimensional shapes, using sides, angles-including acute, obtuse, and right angles.
  • Constructs and deconstructs polygons to make other polygons with up to ten sides.
  • Analyzes two-dimensional shapes and identifies symmetry, congruence and reflections.
  • Builds draws and analyzes two dimensional shapes to examine and apply congruence and symmetry.
  • Creates, analyzes and represents patterns and relationships using words, variables, tables, and graphs.
  • Selects appropriate units, strategies, and tools to solve problems involving perimeter.
  • Measures objects using fractional parts of linear units such as 1/2, 1/4, and 1/10.
  • Tells time to nearest minute, nearest quarter hour, and determines elapsed time, which may include days, weeks, months, and years.
  • Represents, computes, estimates and solves problems through hundred thousands.
  • Solves non-routine problems by searching for patterns, making tables, charts, or list.
  • Creates and analyzes frequency tables, bar graphs, pictographs, and line plots from data collected through observations, surveys, and experiments.

Science

  • Explains that stars can be different, and all except the Sun are far away.
  • Identifies the Sun as a star that emits light energy.
  • Explores the Law of Gravity.
  • Investigates that the number of stars that can be seen through telescopes increases dramatically.
  • Measures and compares temperature and volume of solids and liquids.
  • Compares and measures properties of materials (temperature, volume, mass).
  • Describes the changes water undergoes as it changes states through heating and cooling.
  • Identifies some basic forms of energy, such as light, heat, sound, electrical, and mechanical.
  • Recognizes that energy has the ability to cause motion or create change.
  • Demonstrates that light travels in a straight line.
  • Demonstrates that light can be reflected, refracted and absorbed.
  • Investigate that things that give off light often give off heat.
  • Investigates, observes, and explains that heat is produced when one object rubs against another.
  • Describes structures in plants and their roles in food production, support, water transport.
  • Investigates how plants respond to stimuli.
  • Classifies animals into major groups.
  • Classifies flowering and non-flowering plants into major groups.
  • Describes how animals and plants respond to changing seasons.
  • Recognizes that plants use energy from the Sun, air, and water to make their own food.
  • Uses tools to make observations and collect data.
  • Recognizes that data are collected and interpreted in order to explain an event or concept.
  • Scientists use experimental design in order to answer questions.

Social Studies

  • Utilizes technology resources to gather information from primary and secondary sources.
  • Uses thematic maps, tables, charts, graphs, and photos to analyze geographic information.
  • Labels the continents and oceans on a world map.
  • Uses maps to identify different types of scale to measure distances between two places.
  • Identifies the five regions of the U.S.
  • Labels the states in each of the five regions of the United States.
  • Investigates how people perceive places and regions differently by conducting interviews, mental mapping, and studying news, poems, legends, and songs about a region or area.
  • Describes the climate and vegetation in the United States, Canada, Mexico, and the Caribbean.
  • Explains how the environment influences settlement patterns in the United States, Canada, Mexico, and the Caribbean.
  • Identifies contributions from various ethnic groups to the United States.
  • Gives examples of how scarcity results in trade.
  • Recognizes that buyers and sellers interact to exchange goods and services through the use of trade or money.
  • Explains the purpose and need for government.
  • Explains how government was established through the written Constitution.
  • Identifies group and individual actions of citizens that demonstrate civility, cooperation, volunteerism, and other civic virtues.
  • Describes how government is organized at the local level.
  • Recognizes that every state has a state constitution.
  • Analyzes primary and secondary sources.
  • Recognizes the U.S. Constitution is the supreme law of the land.