Reading

Writing

Math

Science

Social Studies

September

Unit 1: Building a Reading Life

In this first unit of the year, readers focus on getting back into the swing of reading and using all that they have learned about having and sharing ideas about the books they read.

Unit 1: Crafting True Stories

September in a third-grade writing workshop is an exciting time. Students will collect lots of quick drafts of possible stories in notebook entries and will select just one of these to put through the writing process.

Unit 1: Multiplication and Division with 0-5, 9, and 10

Students explore the concepts of multiplication and division, ways to represent the operations in drawings and equations, and strategies for multiplying and dividing.

Unit 1: Clues from the Past

Students become paleontologists who investigate data from fossils in order to provide evidence of the organisms and the environment in which they lived long ago. They learn about traits, inheritance, and life cycles to help them uncover the mystery of the fossil.

Unit 1: Connecticut Geography and Native American Life

Students will be exploring Native American History through the lens of Connecticut. They will be looking at the Geography of CT and how it impacted the lives of the Native Americans. Students will also discuss how Natural Resources were vital to the survival of the Native American Tribes. They will continually focus on what kinds of things the Native Americans did that have impacted the way we live today.

October

Unit 2: Studying Characters Across Series

Readers will work in book clubs to investigate characters and their actions within a series and across series. They will build on their character work from grade 2 to look at how characters’ responses to trouble (and other actions) contributes to a sequence of events.

Unit 2: The Art of Information Writing

This unit teaches students to write in one particular style for

informational writing supported by a mentor text with the qualities of strong informational writing.

November

Unit 2: Multiplication and Division with 6s, 7s, 8s, and Multiply with Multiples of 10

Students continue to use a variety of strategies to multiply and divide while also focusing on word problems using these operations.

Unit 2: Connecticut Identify, History and Government

Students begin by thinking about why and how their families came to Connecticut. Then, students travel back in time to research why and how different people settled in Connecticut during Colonial times. Students will compare their lives to the lives of Connecticut citizens from colonial times and will examine how and why Connecticut established a government. Students will consider citizen’s rights and responsibilities and how these have changed over time for men, women, and children depending on their race and ethnicity.

Unit 3: Nonfiction Reading

Readers focus on nonfiction texts and reading to learn. They shift from their focus in earlier grades on reading to answer a specific question or find ng an interesting fact, to reading to learn what a book has to teach. Instruction will also focus on the underlying structure of texts and how they can help them to hold on to the main ideas and key details of these texts.

Unit 3: Changing the World: Persuasive Writing

Students learn to introduce topics and consider their audience as they improve the quality of opinion writing through structure, craft and conventions.

Unit 2: Movement and Interaction of Objects

Students act as secret agents to solve the causes behind three instances of odd motion. They investigate gravitational, electrical, and magnetic forces so they can explain how each causes motion and what motion can occur.

December

January

Unit 4: Poetry

This unit, with its focus on clarity and precise language, will help students reread and listen to the sounds of the words they have written.

Unit 7: Explore Fractions

Students investigate fractions by focusing on the unit fraction (½, ⅓, ¼, etc). They build fractions from unit fractions, locate fractions on number lines, find equivalent fractions, and compare fractions that have the same numerator or the same denominator.

Unit 4: Learning through Reading

Readers engage in purposeful inquiry in order to research the factors that shape life in another country.

February

Unit 4: Baby Literary Essay

This unit will teach students to take ideas they are having about stories, check to be sure they can support those ideas with evidence directly from the text, and then write a basic literary essay.

Unit 3: Connecticut Industry and Inventions

Connecticut's role in the Industrial Age has had a lasting impact on the state, it’s people, and it’s economy. Connecticut has been a leader in innovation and invention throughout its history. Students will explore the history of industrial innovation and invention in Connecticut while making connections to their world today.

Unit 5: Book Clubs ( Mystery or Biography)

Groups of readers engage in studying and talking about shared mysteries. They focus on seeing cause and effect relationships, predicting outcomes, and reading closely. Best of all, readers are pushed to solve the mystery before the crime solver does.

Unit 3 (Parts 1 and 2): Line Plots and Length Measurement, Time

Students will measure length and organize their data in frequency tables and line plots. They will also tell time to the minute and solve elapsed time problems.

March

Unit 4: Multidigit Addition and Subtraction

Students review place value and rounding numbers to estimate and check reasonableness of answers. They also practice addition and subtraction with multi-digit numbers.

Unit 3: The Case of the Misplaced Fossils

Students become paleontologists again to figure out why an ocean creature fossil ended up in the desert of the Grand Canyon. They learn about how organisms interact with their environment and how changes in the environment (both weather related and non-weather related) affect organisms.

April

Unit 6: Book Clubs (Social Issues)

Readers will look at issues that exist in the world through a variety of perspectives, understanding how a person’s point of view on an issue shapes what he or she thinks and sees.

Unit 5: Poetry

Students will engage in repeated revision and will pay close attention to craft as they analyze poetry and learn to write poetry.

Unit 6: Polygons, Perimeter, and Area

Students learn to recognize and describe different quadrilaterals by their sides and angles. Also, students develop ways to find the perimeter and area of rectangles.

Unit 4: Civic Engagement in Connecticut Over Time

Students will study how Connecticut continues to grow, develop, and contribute to our nation’s history. They will learn about three major social issues and civil rights topics from the last 125 years of Connecticut’s history, including child labor, the World Wars, and the Civil Rights movement.

May

Unit 7:Poetry

This unit, with its focus on clarity and precise language, will help students reread and listen to the sounds of the words they have written.

Unit 6: Information Writing

This unit teaches discipline-based writing during the writing workshop so students learn to write strongly about topics from science and social studies.

Unit 3 (Part 3): Bar Graphs, Volume and Mass Measurement

Students will explore ways to measure things beyond length (volume/mass). They will also create bar graphs and picture graphs.

Unit 4: Disappearing Monarch Butterflies

Students focus on several concepts while investigating the reason behind the declining Monarch Butterfly population. They look at climate and migration as well as how different species vary in order to survive, find mates and reproduce.

June

Unit 5: Write Equations and Solve Word Problems

Students solve addition, subtraction, multiplication, and division word problems. They write equations, including those with unknown numbers.