Third Grade
Third grade provides opportunities for children to learn through playful, collaborative, and creative experiences, fostering self-actualization, leadership, and lifelong learning. Whether students are learning fractions, studying phases of the moon, writing letters, or reading about biomes, we strive to create meaningful experiences with real-life connections.
Community Theme
Through our Community Theme, the third grade has numerous authentic experiences to support the four primary strands in national standards for social studies. Our theme also integrates math, science, art, and language arts into compelling and engaging projects that are interesting and exciting for our children. Our neighborhood visits allow students opportunities to compare and contrast, to conduct both interviews and field research, and to organize information and ideas into articles to share with others. The students use the information they gain to design and build model houses and to research and develop ideas for businesses and services for our model community of River City. They actively participate in the exchange of goods and services for River City dollars during Market Days. This simulated economy enables the children to purchase building supplies for their houses, begin an understanding of economics, and to make decisions based on limited resources. Third graders create a list of traits of a good community member and often find occasions where they need to work together to achieve goals. Completed research papers are presented in a town hall format where students support each other with positive feedback and pertinent questions. Our focus on community culminates with a River City Celebration with our model community constructed along "The River Play Garden" at The College School.
Outdoor Education
Third graders develop academic skills, creativity, and confidence through preparation, experiences and reflections related to our two overnight campouts. We don't go camping to teach children how to camp. We go camping to teach children how to live. An outdoor adventure in third grade is a time for a child to discover that they are braver, more self-reliant, and more capable than they previously realized. Prior to the campouts, students survey their classmates to determine preferences on choices such as food, drinks, and bedtimes. They organize this data into bar graphs and present their findings and recommendations to the class. Third graders examine the shape, color and structure of trees to develop classification and identification skills. Finally, third grade campout experiences help third graders build connections to their peers, teachers and the natural world. These connections instill a sense of belonging, a sense of place, and a sense of wonder that will guide them through a life of learning and achievement.
