Grade Three

Grade Three Learning Objectives

Third graders love to work. Their self-esteem grows with accomplishment and the mastery of wonderful challenges. Third graders investigate what it means to have a respectful relationship with the earth. The primary texts that form the context for learning are various Native American legends and Hebrew and Arabic legends. Using these stories as models, students study the basic parts of speech and learn how to craft a good sentence. Students study gardening and farming: they begin to garden in the school plot, learn to identify grains, and examine how cultures were affected by their dependence on certain grains.

Weekly gardening, cooking, baking, and building activities offer hands-on learning and a growing sense of self-reliance. In Geography, students study housing and buildings from around the world and build their own model houses. Third graders work with all types of measurements and study the contributions of ancient civilizations to the science of measurement. In Math, children expand their understanding of place value, carrying and borrowing, and they begin long division. Reading permeates every subject.

In Grade Three, cooperative games, jump-roping, and Aikido link physical coordination and spatial awareness to intellectual concepts. In Handwork, students learn to crochet and study fiber arts. Two adventures in third grade bring the year’s learning into focus: an overnight stay at a farm and a small building project on campus. Third graders also will practice and perform a class play that is based on curriculum themes of the year.

Weekly reading classes support additional skill development throughout the year. Reading assessments are completed for students by a class teacher.

Subject Classes

• Japanese

  Third grade is a dynamic year of both imitative learning and individual growth. Students begin to take increasing ownership of the language independently. They are fully immersed in the language without translation. They naturally absorb it by interacting exclusively in the language through conversation and greetings, song, poetry recitations, games, and cultural stories. They are given initial exposure to the language’s written form. Main lesson curriculum and habits are reinforced through the target language.

• Handwork

  The third grade curriculum brings new challenges and a variety of possibilities for the students to express their emerging individuality. The students learn to crochet. It is a rhythmic and repetitive activity that develops concentration, strengthens small motor skills/hand-eye coordination, and brings a sense of calm, and well-being to the student.

  The third grade year is also a very practical year. The students experience the qualities and different textures of natural fibers used in clothing and shelters around the world. They experience and learn about the characteristics of wool and alpaca, silk, cotton, and flax/linen. The students also experience and follow the whole cycle of silk - including raising silkworms.

• Movement

  The third grade student has arrived at a crucial stage in their development; they are beginning to see themselves as separate from others. The sense of an autonomous self is emerging, which can leave the student particularly vulnerable. The games fostered within movement support the developing individual. The aspect of winning and losing becomes more conscious, and the third grader must learn to accept both circumstances. The imagination must continue to be stimulated and nurtured as a means of introducing a game or activity. The old structures that once surrounded the student begin to be discarded and will need to be replaced by new ones that strengthen their emotional maturation. The third grader is becoming more independent and is more aware of other’s mistakes, sometimes making notes about them to the group. They are also becoming more observant and can learn in different ways than the previous year.

• Environmental Education

  Students learn in a grades cohort about their local bioregion and watershed through our Cedar River Salmon Journey program. Students tend to salmon eggs on campus and then take a field trip to the Cedar River where the grown salmon are released. Students are appointed as school stewards of our school yard garden, taking particular care of the seed-to-table process of our food. The development of an eco-footprint consciousness is fostered so that students can begin to understand how their individual choices impact global climate patterns.

• Curriculum Trips

  In Third Grade students are developmentally ready to begin broadening their learning reach to include overnight curriculum trips. In Grade Three students gather with other regional Waldorf Schools at a local farm to learn about biodynamic farming and directly engage with tending the earth and the animals.