Third Grade
Third grade is a very important year. It marks the end of primary school and the beginning of Upper Elementary, You will see marked changes in your student spanning all areas of development, including physical, cognitive, and social-emotional. In third grade, students progress from practicing basic skills to mastering them, and they quickly move on to develop more complex skills. They are fluent and savvy readers, creative writers, clever and systematic mathematicians, and more thoughtful critical thinkers.
Decoding and fluency
Decoding is the ability to use patterns to figure out words and decipher their separate sounds. Fluency is the ability to read quickly and accurately. Third graders learn the meaning of most common prefixes (e.g. dis- in disagree; re- in rebuild; unin unfriendly) and simple suffixes (e.g. -able in agreeable or -less in homeless). They also be decode dozens of multisyllabic words, such as pho-to-graph and est-i-mate, as well as read grade-level irregularly spelled words such as enough, especially, and confusion. Your child should be able to read fairly accurately and fluently (not stumbling over too many words). Using the decoding and fluency skills they’ve developed, your third grader is able to read text out loud smoothly and with expression, and able to understand what they are reading as they read it.
Exploring fiction and nonfiction
Third grade is the year of reading mastery. Under the Common Core, second and third grade reading is intertwined. Kids are expected to read different types of fiction and nonfiction — from poems and early literature to science and technical texts (e.g. charts and glossaries). The big difference for third graders is the expectation that, when tackling fiction and nonfiction, your child should be reading text geared toward the high end of grade 3 independently, with expression, understanding, and without much help from adults.
Building knowledge
Your third grader should be learning from every book she reads and relating that information to what she already knows. Think of it like using reading comprehension skills to build a knowledge bank: with every poem, story, or book she reads, there’s a main point, message, and a few key facts that your child learns, relates to what she already knows, and “banks” for future use.
Your child’s teacher will emphasize evidence in different ways this year, but the main skills your child should work on include:
● Asking and answering questions about the five W’s — who, what, when, where, and why — to show both understanding and an ability to find answers in a book’s text or illustrations.
● Identifying the main topic and then naming key details and explaining how those details support the main idea.
● Explaining how specific images — like a diagram of the parts of a flower — contribute information to what they’re reading.
● Describing how a text delivers information in a logical order, such as presenting the problem and then listing the causes or presenting a series of steps in order.
The wide, wide world of words
Your child’s vocabulary plays an increasingly vocabulary important role in your child’s college readiness. The surest way to expand your child’s vocabulary is simple: reading. Read aloud to your child and ensure that they read on their own. Your child’s teacher will expose her to classic fiction, such as Charlotte’s Web; poetry, like Robert Frost’s Stopping by the Woods on a Snowy Evening; and nonfiction, like So You Want to Be President? Any reading that allows your third grader to recognize and use an ever-richer and more academic will keep your child on track. All year long, your child will hone her word-recognition skills. Increasingly, she’ll be expected to rely on clues within the text to decode meaning. For example, in the sentence The miserable troll wouldn’t stop crying and complaining, your child might be unfamiliar with the word miserable. But this year, your child should be able to figure out that the word means unhappy from the context. Your third grader should know how to distinguish shades of meaning among related words (e.g. knew, believed, suspected, heard, wondered), and how to use base words as clues to the meaning of an unfamiliar word (e.g. believe, unbelievable), and how a new word is created when an affix is added to the beginning or end of a known word, such as –ful added to success to make successful.
Responsibility and routines
In third grade the students learn to work cooperatively and productively with other children in small groups to complete projects as they begin to understand how choice affect consequences. As they become more organized and logical thinkers, they learn to create stronger friendships.
Mastering Math Skills
As the third graders continue to become proficient in number concepts, they learn to multiply single and multi-digit numbers. They then continue on to learn to divide multi-digit numbers by one number and how to tell time to the quarter hour, to five minute and to one minute.
Responsibility and routines
Throughout third grade, the students become more independent and responsible in the classroom. They begin to partner with the teachers to take responsibility for themselves as learners. They will also begin incorporating technology much more fluidly work cooperatively with partners or small group. With a deep understanding of right and wrong the begin to take responsibility for their work, using time wisely and following routines.
Judaic Studies
The Study of formal Torah /Chumash text learning is a main subject in our Judaic class. Emphasis is made on students gaining a clear understanding of the fascinating narratives of Parshat Lecha Lecha. They will continue
continue to build their Torah vocabulary base of high frequency words, prefixes, and suffixes and most common root words. Our aim is for our students to become independent Torah scholars.
As important as the textual knowledge, is the moral and ethical values, as well as the personal association and relevancy that extend from this learning. Instruction is done in variety of ways including: teacher led instruction, group level differentiated instruction, and independent discovery learning.
Kriya - Hebrew Reading
Time is allotted daily to reinforcing the fluency and accuracy of Hebrew reading. Reading practice is conducted with partners, in small group and full class settings, to ensure that reading sessions are simulating, engaging and fun.
Students broaden their knowledge and fluency of the traditional daily prayers from a Siddur (prayer book), as well as gain an appreciation for the meaning and connect with the prayers they are reciting. Our goal is for our students to be familiar and at home with the Jewish prayers in every prayer setting.
Power of Prayer” is a very beautiful scrapbooking project, exclusive to the Hebrew Academy, which follows our students from 3rd to 5th grade. Power of prayer is a fun and exciting way of giving our students an in depth look at meaning of the prayers beyond the literal translation of the words. With Power of Prayer, our students have an opportunity, in art form, to express what the prayers mean on a personal level.
Yahadus - Jewish Traditions and Culture
Our Jewish Holidays, traditions and culture come alive with energy and spirit ,as our students see, hear and feel first hand from their teachers all about the significance and uniqueness of every holiday.
Students of the Hebrew Academy receive a complete and comprehensive awareness and full understanding of Judaic culture and the timeless messages that are as relevant today as ever before. Hebrew Academy Students will learn and know the traditions and how to participate and often lead Jewish rituals, ceremony and celebrations.
Each week, special emphasis is given to the Torah Reading. Each week the story of each Parsha comes alive and becomes relevant, as our students learn and connect to the main Parsha themes. Our students take personal notes of their favorite Parsha themes and personal lessons and are very proud to share their extensive knowledge with family and friends around the Shabbat dinner table.
Ivrit - Hebrew Language
The acquisition of conversational modern Hebrew is a main theme at the Hebrew Academy. Our aim is for our students to develop a love for the land and people of Israel thru the use of the Hebrew language. In Ivrit, students develop their Hebrew oral skills. As they advance in their knowledge and accuracy of Hebrew, they become confident in their communication abilities. Lessons are based and built around our recently adopted Migdal Ohr workbook series. Pages are beautifully decorated, engaging and stimulating. In 3rd grade, the emphasis is on simple sentence structure related to personal life, and relationship building. Strong Jewish values are highly emphasized throughout the Ivrit curriculum.
Core Values
We are proud that learning and internalizing Jewish values are integral parts of the outstanding Hebrew Academy educational program, and look for opportunities to recognize students who embody these character traits. Each month our school highlights a different core value. Our teachers, both General Studies and Judaic, will be teaching lessons connected to the core value of the month. Students also reflect on the role that each core value plays with their families and friends extending beyond our campus. Every Rosh Chodesh, at our school community assembly, the children are recognized for their achievements and a Community Leader Award is chosen from every grade for exemplifying the core value(s) of the month.