Third Grade

FOSS, Next Generation Science

Science is very hands-on. Unit studies include the Human Body, Geology, Planetary Systems, and Light and Sound. The year begins with the human body. By the end of the unit, students can explain and illustrate the digestive system, identify and give scientific names for major bones of the skeletal system, take their pulse, discuss the food groups and nutrition. Lessons use a model of a human torso that can be taken apart, lots of observation and note-taking, and even the dissection of a human brain (made of gray jello!). In Geology students learn to identify a wide variety of rock formations, consider the density of different rocks, and create their own “granite” with foam blocks. Students go on a “rock walk” of the neighborhood, magnifying glasses in hand, identifying local rocks. Many more varieties are examined in the classroom and on field trips. 

Students cultivate reading fluency, accuracy and comprehension through development of word-attack skills, study of grammar, written and oral activities, and group work. Comprehension activities include individual written and oral responses to reading material and group and partner discussions. Students now “read to learn” and tackle increasingly challenging literature, poetry, and fiction works including Charlotte’s Web, Where the Mountain Meets the Moon, and Birchbark House. Selections include short stories, excerpts from noteworthy books, poetry, and topic-appropriate artwork.  Students will be discussing issues of friendship, learning about the origins of money, imagining what life is like in faraway lands, and comparing country life to big city life. Journal writing continues and creative writing leads to the production of illustrated and bound books by the students. In composition, form – complete sentences, proper use of paragraphs, descriptive detail – is stressed, along with proofreading and self-editing.

Math in Focus, Grade 4 Curriculum

Students are introduced to increasingly complex addition, subtraction, and multiplication operations, leading to division, word problems, standard and metric measurements, and work with decimals and fractions, positive and negative numbers, and probability. Students learn to measure angles with a protractor, are introduced to square root and simple exponents, and study long division with remainders. They work with calculators, tangrams, and rulers with millimeter and sixteenth-of-an-inch markings. Accuracy and attention to detail are key components, providing students with important study skills that will help them as math becomes increasingly challenging in years to come. Students are encouraged to focus and be disciplined, and the class engages in oral as well as written math exercises. The class also plays numerous math games, which help students sharpen their knowledge of math facts.

Savvas Social Studies

Social Studies embraces a wide range of subjects from life in early America to guide dogs. Along the way, students learn the different ways maps can be read and used, from finding a local address to the latitude and longitude of a spot on the globe. Units the class covers includes the study of different cultures, Native American and pioneer life and history, landforms, natural resources, and citizenship. The study of maps leads naturally into the study of landforms, climate and vegetation, and consideration of how different environments help shape different cultures. 

3rd Grade students have Spanish class daily.  Our program stresses language acquisition through conversation, study of the language’s structure and grammar, and study of Spanish-speaking cultures. Every opportunity is made to bring the language to life for students, with cultural activities, class feasts and field trips. 

You can learn more about the Spanish program here.

 Students have music, art, drama, and tech classes multiple times a week. Each class at different times of the year also practices and performs a play with two showings; one in the afternoon for their schoolmates and teachers, and one in the evening for parents and family.

At all grade levels, enrichment classes are taught by highly skilled and passionate specialist teachers. You can learn more here.

Students enjoy physical education classes three days a week. You can learn more here.

Third graders go on a variety of field trips each year, including Emma Prusch Farm, Coyote Hills, and the Oakland Zoo.