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3rd Grade

Expedition 1: Near and Far

Students use literature and informational text to introduce students to the power of literacy and how people around the world overcome learning challenges. It is intentionally designed to encourage students to embrace a love of literacy and reading.

Guiding Questions & Big Ideas:

  • Why are education, books, and reading important?
    • Education, books, and reading are important because they help us learn about and make sense of the world, and escape into the lives of other people and other worlds.
  • How can I overcome learning challenges?
    • I can overcome learning challenges by being an effective learner: taking initiative and responsibility, persevering, and collaborating.

Expedition 2: Exploring Literary Classics

What can we learn from reading literary classics? In this module, students consider the answer to this question through a case study of Peter Pan by J.M. Barrie.

Guiding Questions & Big Ideas:

  • How do writers capture a reader’s imagination?
    • Authors show, not tell, how a character feels through dialogue and description.
    • Authors choose words and phrases for effect to help readers imagine they are in the story.
  • What can we learn from reading literary classics?
    • Literary classics are told in different ways over time.
    • Literary classics can show how things have changed since the time they were written.
    • Readers have differing opinions about the texts they read and support their opinions with evidence from the text.

Expedition 3: Adaptations and the Wide World of Frogs

Students will use literacy skills to become experts–people who use reading, writing, listening, and speaking to build and share deep knowledge about a topic.

Guiding Questions & Big Ideas:

  • How does an author engage the reader in a narrative?
    • An effective narrative has a beginning that establishes the character and situation, a middle that introduces a problem with character response, and an ending that resolves the problem.
  • How do experts build knowledge and share expertise about a topic?
    • Experts build knowledge by studying a topic in depth.
    • Experts share information through writing and speaking.
  • How do frogs survive?
    • Frogs have unique adaptations that help them to survive in various environments.

Math Units:

  • Unit 1: Solving Problems with Data
  • Unit 2: Thinking around Shapes
  • Unit 3: Thinking in Equal Groups
  • Unit 4: Tiling to Understand Area
  • Unit 5: Seeing Multiplication as Area
  • Unit 6: Understanding ½
  • Unit 7: Seeing Fractions: The Parts and the Wholes
  • Unit 8: Being Flexible with Numbers