The Catholic School is a unique faith-centered community, which integrates thinking and believing in ways that encourage intellectual growth, nurture faith, and inspire action.
The commitment to academic excellence, which fosters the intellectual development of all students, is an integral part of the mission of our school.
Religion
Your child will learn about:
- Creation, Catholic Foundations, Church History, People of Faith, Ways to Worship, The Commandments, Sacraments, Celebrating the Catholic year
- Planning and participating in school liturgies
- Bible Verses
- Family life
- Stewardship
- Community
- All children attend our school Mass every Friday in addition to Holy Days of Obligation, special prayer services, and liturgies
Writing
Your child will learn about:
- These forms of writing: narrative, , expository, persuasive, biography, descriptive
- Emphasis on the writing traits:
Conventions, ideas, content, sentence fluency, word choice, voice, organization, and presentation
- The Writing Process
Reading
Your child will learn:
- Decoding, word attack skills, and vocabulary development to build fluency
- Skill building
- Author’s perspective
- Cause and effect
- Classify and categorize
- Compare and contrast
- Context clues
- Details
- Drawing conclusions
- Elements of fiction/non-fiction
- Fact and opinion
- Text features
- Main Idea
- Making inferences and predictions
- Reality and Fantasy
- Research skills
- Sequencing
- Story elements
- Summarizing
Grammar
Your child will learn about:
- Sentences: subject and predicate
- Sentence types
- Nouns: common, proper, singular, plural, and possessive
- Abbreviations
- Pronouns: subjects and object, singular and plural
- Adjectives
- Verbs: present, past, main and helping
- Irregular verbs
- Contractions
- Adverbs
Spelling
Your child will have:
- A weekly spelling word list organized by phonetic rules
- A weekly spelling test
Math
Your child will learn:
- Addition and subtraction facts
- Place value and number sense
- Money, time
- Data, graphs, probability
- Multiplication facts from 0 to 12
- Division facts from 0 to 12
- Measurement
- Geometry
- Fractions
- Decimals
- Problem solving strategies
Assessment
Our students participate in the MAPS assessment given 3 times per year.
DIBELS – An oral reading fluency test given 3 times per year.
Science
Your child will participate in:
Inquiry-based LASER Science units of:
- Animal habits
- How weather and climate affects our lives
- Plant Growth and Development
In addition, your child will study:
- Nutrition and health
P.E.
Students receive 45 minutes of P.E. once per week in which the focus is on gross and fine motor skills, learning new games, participation and respect for others.
Music
Students will participate in music 2 times a week for 40 minutes. Students will review learned concepts, as well as, continue simple/moderate folk, sacred and secular pieces to explore:
- Rhythm – meter/time signatures, bar lines, double bar lines, even/uneven
- Melody – pitch, tonal center, pentatonic scale, solfege
- Form – rondo, verse/refrain, question/answer
- Texture/expression – canon, accompaniment, orchestra/band instruments
Students will also experiment with pitched and unpitched percussion.
Computer Technology
Your child will:
- Use word processing to create, edit, and publish
- Use computer programs to practice and review various math and reading skills
- Use technology to aid in research
Art
The elements and principles of art will be integrated into the classroom curriculum through an hour of art instruction each week with our school’s art teacher. Your child will create numerous art activities related to the social studies and science curriculum:
- The seasons
- Native American studies
- The rain forest
Your child will also study Japanese Art and the Impressionist movement in art history.
Your child will learn skills involved in
- Contour drawing
- Printmaking
- Collage
- Sumi watercolor
- Color theory
- Paper marbelling
- Chalk drawing
- Clay
- Proper use and care of art materials
Activities
The children will enjoy activities which are supplemental to the classroom experience.
Message to Parents
Welcome to the world of third grade! Responsible thinking, self-respect, and caring for others are a part of our classroom’s faith community.
Concepts are presented in a combination of traditional skills and inquiry-based learning.
Each child is expected to achieve, be challenged, and contribute to the classroom environment using his/her unique abilities.
Parent Volunteers are a welcome addition to our classroom learning. Please contact your child’s teacher for more details.
