3rd Grade

Third Grade Newsletter 2025-2026

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.

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.

Summary of Writing Module 9: Poetry

In Module 9, students will explore how food gets from the farm to our table while learning how poets use language to describe experiences, seasons, and change. Through reading, listening, and viewing informational texts and media, students build knowledge about farming, food systems, and the role of seasons in food production. This knowledge supports their writing as they analyze poetry, identify poetic elements, and experiment with descriptive language.

As writers, students study poems closely to understand how poets use structure, imagery, and word choice to convey meaning. They move through the writing process—from brainstorming and drafting to revising, editing, and publishing—while crafting poems about seasons and personal experiences. Throughout the module, students strengthen their ability to use vivid descriptions, sensory details, and precise words to help readers visualize ideas and feel connected to the poem’s message.

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 and Climate

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: Civic Action

Thematic Context for Teacher “Never doubt,” the cultural anthropologist Margaret Mead once observed, “that a small group of thoughtful, committed people can change the world. Indeed, it is the only thing that ever has.” Mead’s comments underscore one of the main reasons that civics education matters. While outlining the basic form and function of government and highlighting the rights and responsibilities of the same, civics education invites young people to see themselves as integral agents within a participatory democracy where their active engagement matters. Lessons that demonstrate both the individual and collective acts of people in shaping the course of the world can move students away from the notion that it is only the actions of “great people,” like Eleanor Roosevelt or Mahatma Gandhi, that bring about great change. Students’ mindset can be shifted to understanding that acts of everyday democracy are critical in the maintenance of our society and government.While community service is a part of civic engagement, citizens also have the responsibility for staying informed about a range of issues, from funding for education to policing, and health care. As Jefferson wrote to Charles Yancey in Civic Action 233 Grades 3–5: Civics for All Curriculum Guide Integrated Planner 1816, “If a nation expects to be ignorant and free, in a state of civilization, it expects what never was and never will be.” Jefferson made the case even more pointedly in his opinion on an Apportionment Bill in 1792, “Though (the people) may acquiesce, they cannot approve what they do not understand.”

Physical Education Curriculum: 

What a fantastic year it has been in third grade Physical Education! Our students have worked hard, stayed active, and had lots of fun while learning new skills.

This year, students practiced important movement skills like throwing, catching, kicking, dribbling, shooting and balancing. They also played a variety of games that helped them learn teamwork, cooperation, and good sportsmanship. It has been wonderful to see their confidence grow as they tried new activities.  I am proud of how students supported each other, worked together, followed directions, and showed respect during class. 

As we get closer to summer, I encourage students to keep moving—play outside, ride bikes, swim, or join a sport. Staying active is a great way to stay healthy and have fun.

Thank you for a great year! Have a safe, happy, and active summer!

Music : Students in Third Grade music will be learning about cultural folk dances of the world. They will be learning about folk poetry and songs that have been passed down through generations, in connection to their HMH unit about poetry. 

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 characters, which ties to their story reading in HMH. The students also learned about the fundamentals of acting and will be applying this knowledge to their upcoming performance of “Stone Soup” 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 begin learning about folk dances and ballroom dance from around the world, working with teaching artists from Dancing Classrooms. The students will dance twice a week, and will culminate their efforts in a sharing session for families on June 24th. More information about this programming will be released to families soon.

Art:    3rd-grade artists are studying Vincent van Gogh’s iconic Sunflowers series. We focused on how Van Gogh used vibrant yellows and warm ambers to show different stages of a flower's life, from bright blooms to drooping petals. The students practiced using bold brushstrokes and layering their colors to create a sense of movement and energy on their paper. Each art piece shows just how much personality a simple vase of flowers can have when seen through the eyes of an artist.

Student Voice  Module 7 Wrap Up Padlet