3rd Grade

Summary of Module 9: From Farm to Table

Reading: Over the next three weeks, our class will build their knowledge about food sources, with a focus on the informational text genre. We will read texts and view videos about how foods reach our tables. Children will also write an expository essay that tells how food gets from the farm to the table.

Home Connections: 

Discuss the Topic: Set aside time daily for your child to share with you what he or she is learning. 

Use these ideas to help build your child’s knowledge about the topic:

• Talk about the ideas your child has added to the Knowledge Map each week. 
• Ask about the texts your child is reading, and what he or she has learned from them. 
• Share with your child your own questions about the topic, and work together to find the answers.

Explore the Genre: The genre focus in this module is informational text. Discuss with your child the characteristics of this genre. Ask your child to read to you each day and make time to read together.

 Look for texts that: 

• Spark your child’s curiosity.
• Tie to the module topic.
• Provide interesting facts and details about where different types of food come from. 
• Have visuals and graphic features that support and extend ideas presented in the text.

Build Vocabulary: Use these ideas to help your child build a rich vocabulary. 

• The Big Idea: Reinforce the topic words agriculture, reap, nutrition, and tilling in everyday conversations. Use prompts like these: How does good nutrition help you? What can we reap from a garden? 
• What Does It Mean? Have your child keep a growing list of the Critical Vocabulary words. Quiz each other on their meanings. 

Word Hunt Look for words with the prefixes in–, re–, the suffixes – ful, –ness, –able, and –ion, and the root mem in books, magazines, online texts, and environmental print.

Writing:  Literary Paragraphs

Throughout this unit students will be working with different forms of literature to write literary paragraphs that focus on particular themes found in the texts we are reading. We will create literary paragraphs after reading multiple passages/articles that explain a specific theme. The students will pull evidence from these texts in order to prove the theme to be true.

We will continue to work on organization, paragraph structure, introductions, conclusions, partner sentences, spelling, and punctuation during the unit.

Theme: A literary theme is the lesson, moral, or central message/idea an author is trying to teach the reader.  The theme of a story can be conveyed using characters, setting, dialogue, plot, or a combination of all of these elements. These themes are broad and can be taken to other literary works and our own lives. 

Common Theme Examples:

• Compassion
• Courage
• Friendship
• Honesty
• Loyalty
• Perseverance
• Importance of family
• Benefits of hard work

Home Connection:   The books students read, songs they listen to, and many tv shows or movies that they watch have themes or lessons we can learn.  Ask your child what the message of the book/song/show/movie was and how they know using evidence to prove their thinking. 

Math Geometry 

       During this unit students will focus on learning the attributes of two-dimensional shapes, especially quadrilaterals.  Students will look at different types of quadrilaterals such as trapezoids, parallelograms, rectangles, rhombuses, and squares.  They will learn how these quadrilaterals are defined in terms of the attributes of their sides and angles.  Students will move on to learning about convex and concave polygons.  They will use these attributes to differentiate between different polygons.  

         After learning about the different attributes the shapes have, students will use this knowledge to classify shapes by identifying common characteristics within a group of shapes.  They will tell how polygons or quadrilaterals are alike and how they are different.  

       Last students will determine the perimeter of various shapes.  They will explore the relationship between area and perimeter by analyzing shapes with the same area and different perimeters of shapes with the same perimeter and different areas. 

Home Connections:  One way to include this math unit at home is by looking at different geometric shapes in art designs, mosaics, quilts or banners- have your child discuss what they see in the designs.  Count the different types of shapes and describe the shapes using attributes taught.  Students can also create their own designs by using different shapes.

Materials: Colored pencils, Grid paper, Various Shapes

Science: Weather is one of the most pervasive phenomena humans interact with on a daily basis, and it has a profound impact on how all organisms on Earth live. The weather that impacts our daily lives results from large global patterns in the atmosphere, which meteorologists observe and track using Earth-orbiting satellites. In the role of meteorologists third grade students will be working for the fictional Wildlife Protection Organization (WPO), students will investigate weather patterns as they solve the problem of where to establish an orangutan reserve. Students learn that orangutans live on Borneo and Sumatra—some of the hottest and rainiest places on Earth—but the development of palm oil plantations is rapidly deforesting their habitats. The students’ charge is to analyze the weather on three fictional islands in order to determine which has weather most like the locations where orangutans live and recommend one island to the WPO for the reserve. As they progress through the unit, students become increasingly adept in making sense of the data that is necessary to accurately describe the weather of a given location over time. They figure out how meteorologists collect, analyze, and represent weather data for one day, then for one month, and finally for an entire year. Students use digital modeling tools and support from the unit’s books to figure out that weather follows patterns over time and across space. Using these patterns to make predictions about the future weather on the three fictional islands serves as the predicted phenomenon for this unit. By the end of the unit, students are able to use their best evidence to support written scientific arguments for the location of the reserve.

Social Studies: In this unit, students will conduct a case study on Egypt. The goal of the Egypt Case Study unit is to understand how geography, art, history, economics, and government shape Egyptian culture. Even though we live in New York City, which is a very complex urban environment that has its own geography, culture, art, history, economics, and government, we are part of a much larger community—the world. We can look at Egypt through that same lens. Egypt has existed as a community or civilization for thousands of years. Because it has such a long history, historians classify early Egypt as an “ancient civilization.” Sometimes historians look at how life in ancient Egypt shaped the communities of Egypt today.

Physical Education Curriculum: 

Class 301 will participate in a variety of games and activities which focus on the importance of staying physically active and living a healthy lifestyle. Whether it is learning the skills of an individual sport such as tennis or track or a team sport such as baseball or soccer, the children will experience a variety of activities and games. In addition to staying active, we will reinforce teamwork, cooperation, patience, and supporting one another. We try to utilize “one mic” to enable us to listen when someone is sharing an idea or thought. We have worked on the use of “strategies” during our games to see how they can affect the outcome of an obstacle we are trying to solve. We have learned that listening to one another and working together as a team has much more successful outcomes.

Dancing Classrooms: Third grade is participating in a 16 session residency with Dancing Classrooms, where they are exploring different ballroom dance styles from around the world. As they learn about each dance style, they are learning about the social traditions of the country of its origin. At the end of the residency, they will share their knowledge with their families

Art: Our third artists have been channeling their creativity by creating colorful animals inspired by the vibrant style of Australian contemporary artist and designer, Pete Cromer. Known for his distinctive use of shapes and bold colors, Cromer's work has sparked the students' imaginations, leading them to experiment with various materials and techniques. As they cut, glue, and arrange, these young artists are not only developing their artistic skills but also learning about the characteristics of different bird and cat species. This hands-on experience allows them to appreciate the beauty of nature while expressing themselves through art.

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