Third Grade

A. Course Description:

Third Grade builds on the reading, spelling, composition, critical thinking, and math skills developed in Second Grade. We continue to develop a student's composition skills via the Progymnasmata, where students write fables and poetry. Students practice these skills on the canvass of our History class. Most subject content is organized and integrated around the theme of Greece and Rome.

B. Objectives and Methods:

Language Arts skills are advanced through classifying sentences. Per the Progymnasmata, students also continue writing paragraphs, fables and poetry. Per Spell to Write and Read, students spell the 1,000 most commonly used words in the English language. Through dictation, critical thinking skills and note taking skills are developed. By emphasizing student reading, students continue to be exposed to excellent literature and develop reading comprehension and good reading habits.

Critical thinking skills and Mathematic proficiency are developed by teaching place value, fractions, decimals, square roots and multiplication of two and three digit numbers.

Rhetoric skills are sharpened as students present oral reports on historical figures.

C. Course Goals:

Students will be able to:

• read fractions and decimals and understand place value;
• multiply two and three digit numbers;
• recite addition, subtraction, multiplication and division facts/tables;
• spell the 1,000 most commonly used words in the English language;
• write acrostic, couplet, quatrain and cinquain poetry;
• classify three kinds of sentences and categorize sentence patterns;
• understand Greek mythology and its impact on daily life in Ancient Greece;
• understand Greek history and the birth of democracy;
• identify Homer and his writings, and identify Roman emperors;
• understand some of the causes of the growth of the Roman empire;
• see God's plan unfold as the Gospel and church spread throughout the Greco-Roman world;
• present oral reports on historical figures;
• understand the parts and function of the human body

D. Sample of Student Texts:

Hirsch's Ancient Greece and Ancient Rome, The Trojan Horse by Little, Ancient Greece by Sands, The Greeks by Peach, The Roman Empire by Sands, Pompeii... Buried Alive by Kunhardt; Charlotte's Web by E.B. White, the Cricket in Time Square by Selden, The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe by Lewis, etc.

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