3rd Grade

Third Grade Newsletter 2025-2026

Reading Module 7: Make a Difference 

Essential Question: How can one person make a meaningful difference in their local or global community?

Reading: In this module, students will listen to, read, and view a variety of texts and media that provide information about building communities. A genre focus on narrative nonfiction provides students with opportunities to identify the author's purpose, text structure, and text and graphic features in order to better understand unfamiliar texts. Students will also encounter historical fiction to build knowledge across genres. As students build their vocabulary and synthesize topic knowledge, they will learn more about the way a dedicated individual or group of people can help make a community stronger and better.

Vocabulary Focuses:

• Suffixes: -ion, -ness, -able
• Vocabulary Strategies: Analogies, Reference Sources: Thesaurus

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 narrative nonfiction. 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. 
• Tell the story of a real person who has made a difference in his or her community. 
• Describe a clear sequence of events that explain the person’s contribution.

Writing Module 7: Informational Text: Expository Books

In this module students will continue to think about the animals that live outdoors throughout the year. They will continue to work on their informational books about an animal who uses special skills to live outdoors year round.

 

Reading Module 8: Imagine & Invent 

Essential Question: What does it take to make a successful invention?

Reading: Over the next three weeks, our class will build their knowledge about inventors and inventions, with a focus on the nonfiction genre. We will read texts about what it takes to make a successful invention. Children will also write an opinion essay telling which inventor in this module made the greatest contribution, and why.

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 nonfiction. 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 inventors and inventions. 
• Reveal the true successes—and failures—behind an invention.

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

• The Big Idea: Reinforce the topic words- invention, brilliant, productive, and original in everyday conversations with your child. Use prompts like these: When are you most productive, and why? Describe a brilliant idea. 
• 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 roots graph, vis, and mem, the suffix –logy, and the prefix ex– in books, magazines, online texts, and environmental print.

 

Writing Module 8: Informational Text: Research Essay 

After learning about Thomas Edison in reading, students will choose one of Edison’s important inventions to further research.  Students will write an informational essay to show that they have learned. They will describe the invention, explain the need for the invention, and how it changed the world.

Math: Fractions
      We are currently working on our Fractions Module.  In this module students will extend and deepen practice with equal shares to understand fractions as equal partitions of a whole.  Students will learn how to determine if a whole is partitioned into equal or unequal parts.  Students will then actively partition different models of wholes into equal parts (e.g., concrete models and drawn pictorial area models on paper).  

       During the Fraction Module students will complete a Project Based Learning task.  Students will use what they have learned during the module to create a pizza recipe and create their own pizza. Students will use fractions and content words to present their task. 

       As students learn all about fractions they will also practice their problem solving skills as they complete Exemplars.  Students will use different math strategies to show their thinking in a representational way and an abstract way.  They will show how they arrive at a solution to the real-world scenario.   

Home Connection: During this unit you can help your child understand fractions by: 

• Get out the measuring cups and spoons!  Let your child fill them up and talk about the amount in each.
• Have a Fraction Meal- start off with the whole meal then cut up/ split the food.  Discuss what happened to the food and continue to discuss as your child eats. Ideas for Fraction at Meal Time!

Materials: cubes, fraction templates, fraction strips, number lines, fractions cards

Science: Environments and Survival

There is an astounding diversity of traits among organisms living in different environments on Earth. How do the traits of different organisms make them more likely or less likely to survive in their environments? What happens to organisms when their environment changes? Biologists continue to study how organisms’ traits affect their ability to avoid predators and to get food and water. Many engineers in the field of biomimicry engineering draw inspiration from the traits of organisms to design innovative solutions for a vast array of problems, such as painless needles inspired by mosquito stingers or body armor inspired by fish scales. In the Environments and Survival unit, students assume the role of biomimicry engineers studying a population of grove snails to understand how the snails’ traits influence their survival in a changing environment. Students apply what they learn to plan, make, and test designs that solve problems. Reporting to the lead engineer at an engineering firm, students work to explain why the snails with yellow shells in the population aren’t surviving as well as the snails with banded shells. Motivated to figure out why some snails are more likely to survive than others, students use physical models, read informational texts, analyze data, and engage in student-to-student discussions to investigate factors affecting organisms’ survival. Students write scientific explanations about their findings to communicate ideas back to the engineering firm. At the end of the unit, to help the engineering firm design a robot that aims to mitigate the effect of an environmental change, students use their newfound understanding of how the traits of organisms affect the organisms’ survival.In Unit 3 students investigate the question Why were snails with yellow shells more likely to survive in their environment 10 years ago? Students examine and discuss examples of environmental changes and use a model to collect data that reveals how an environmental change can affect which traits are adaptive in a population. Through discussion of case studies they read about, students continue to investigate this idea about how different traits might be adaptive before and after each environmental change. Finally, students revisit the digital modeling tool to model their ideas about which traits are adaptive before and after an environmental change. At the end of the chapter, students write scientific explanations that answer the Unit 3 Question why were snails with yellow shells more likely to survive in their environment 10 years ago.

Social Studies: Role of the Government

 In this unit students will explore the various parties within the United States Government. Students will explore why the Legislative Branch is important. Students will also  understand that the Legislative Branch makes federal, or nationwide, laws. As students navigate through the various branches of government, they will  focus on how the Constitution was being written, there was a lot of disagreement on how the people should be represented. During the Constitutional Convention, in the course of meetings in which the Founding Fathers decided what the Constitution should include, one of the things they debated was whether each state should get an equal number of votes, or if each state should get votes based on the number of people living in the state. Students will decide  if they think it is fairer for every state to get one vote or a vote based on how many people live in that state. Students will also further explore political parties by explaining that they are going to create their own political spectrum, or range, of beliefs and consider which political party they would join.

 

Art:

Our 3rd grade artists are studying the vibrant world of Pop Art and the legendary artist, Andy Warhol. Students are learning that art doesn't have to be a landscape or a portrait, it can be inspired by the everyday items we see in our own kitchens. Each young artist is designing their own iconic soup or soda can (inspired by Warhol), focusing on bold outlines, and high-contrast bold, pop style colors. By transforming ordinary objects into extraordinary masterpieces, we will be discovering that inspiration is everywhere!

  

Music:  Students in third grade music are beginning a deep dive into third grade rhythm concepts, such as sixteenth note rhythms (tiki-tiki), whole note rhythms (ta-a-a-ahm) and half note rhythms (ta-ahm). The students are going to be learning the song “Make a Difference” and connecting the lyrics of the song to what they are learning in their HMH unit, also titled “Make a Difference.”

SPARK New Victory Theater: Students are completing a fifteen workshop residency with teaching artists from New Victory Theater. The students learned previously about clowning, and tied their knowledge to their previous HMH unit about characters in stories. The students also learned about the fundamentals of acting and applied this knowledge to their previous HMH unit about Stories on Stage in their performances of “Kitty Cat Capers” and “Arf: A Canine Musical.” Currently the students are learning about juggling and acrobatics. The students will be culminating this knowledge in a circus that will be performed for their peers. 

Dancing Classrooms: Students will be beginning a ballroom dancing residency with Dancing Classrooms in May. The students will be learning about dance styles from around the world and connecting their knowledge to the country of origin.

 

Physical Education: 

In Physical Education, Third grade students will be participating in “Games That Make a Difference.” Many of these activities focus on teamwork, kindness, and helping others while staying active. The children will be playing cooperative games where they work together to solve challenges, support teammates, and encourage fair play. Through these activities, they will learn how their actions can positively impact others both in and out of the gym.

Our goal is to help students understand that being a good teammate—showing respect, including everyone, and offering encouragement can truly make a difference.

Student Voice: Check out our persuasive letters from Module 5. Students had to write a letter persuading a new student to be their friend. They were asked to take the position that you would like that person to be your friend, and give supporting details that explain why.  

Module 5 Persuasive Letters