Third Grade MERLIN Curriculum

Reading

Reads (MERLIN advanced) Grade Level Text

• Read and comprehend text accurately

Comprehension: Key Ideas and Details

• Use text-based evidence to make inferences and demonstrate understanding of text
• Determine main idea(s) and themes
• Summarize text
• Describe causes and effects between characters and events
• Determine the meaning of words and phrases, including content- related words

Comprehension: Craft and Structure

• Determine the meaning of words and phrases, including content- related words
• Use text structure and text features in informational texts
  • Cause and effect
  • Chronological
  • Problem/solution
  • Compare and contrast
• Explain text structure and text features in literature
  • Poems (verse, rhythm)
  • Drama (dialogue, settings)
• Compare and contrast different points of view

Comprehension: Integration

• Use information from illustrations, print, and digital texts to deepen understanding
• Explain how authors use reasoning and evidence to support their points
• Compare and contrast themes
• Use information from multiple texts in research

Writing

Write to a Variety of Topics with Elaboration

• Write narratives using effective technique, descriptive details and clear event sequences
• Write opinion pieces supporting point of view with reasons
• Write informative texts to examine a topic and clearly convey information

Organize Writing Using Logical Organizational Structure

• Lead – write a beginning in which he/she not only shows what is happening and where, but also gives some clues to what could later become a problem for the main character
• Transitions – use transitional phrases to show passage of time in complicated ways, perhaps by showing things happening at the same time or flashback and flash- forward
• Ending – Write an ending that connects to the main part of the story. The character said, did, or realized something at the end that came from what happened in the story
• Organization – Use paragraphs to separate different parts of time of the story to show when a new character is speaking. Some parts of the story are longer and more developed than others
• Elaboration – Develop character, setting, and plot throughout the story, especially the heart of the story. Use a blend of description, action, dialogue and thinking
• Write a variety of texts – narratives, opinion pieces, informative texts, etc.

Write with Voice, and Varies Words and Sentences

• Show why characters did what they did by including their thinking and their responses to what happened
• Slow down the heart of the story. Make less important parts shorter and less detailed blending storytelling and summary as needed
• Include precise details and uses figurative language so that readers can picture the setting, characters, and events. Use some objects or actions as symbols to bring forth meaning
• Vary sentences to create the pace and tone of narrative

Conventions

• Use grade appropriate grammar, spelling and conventions in writing

Analyze and Evaluate Own Writing

• Reflect on writing and sets goals

Mathematics

Operations and Algebraic Thinking

• Use the four operations with whole numbers to solve problems
• Gain familiarity with factors and multiples
• Generate and analyze patterns. Number and Operations in Base Ten
• Generalize place value understanding for multi-digit whole numbers
• Use place value understanding and properties of operations to perform multi-digit arithmetic

Number and Operations—Fractions

• Extend understanding of fraction equivalence and ordering
• Build fractions from unit fractions by applying and extending previous understandings of operations on whole numbers
• Understand decimal notation for fractions, and compare decimal fractions

Measurement and Data

• Solve problems involving measurement and conversion of measurements from a larger unit to a smaller unit
• Represent and interpret data
• Geometric measurement: understand concepts of angle and measure angles

Geometry

• Draw and identify lines and angles, and classify shapes by properties of their lines and angles

Mathematical Practices

• Make sense of problems and persevere in solving them
• Reason abstractly and quantitatively
• Construct viable arguments and critique the reasoning of other
• Model with mathematics
• Use appropriate tools strategically
• Attend to precision
• Look for and make use of structure
• Look for and express regularity in repeated reasoning

Science

• Forces and interactions
• Interdependent relationships in ecosystems
• Inheritance and variation of traits: Life cycles and traits
• Weather and climate
• Engineering design

Social Studies

• Geography of North America
• Cultures of North America
• Cultures in Our Community: Notable Americans

Art

• Understand and apply art knowledge and skills
• Demonstrate thinking skills using artistic processes
• Communicate through the arts
• Make connections within and across the arts, to other disciplines, cultures, life and work

Music

• Read, note, and perform rhythm
• Hear, discriminate, perform, read, and note pitch
• Listen to, analyze, demonstrate, and describe qualities of sound
• Identify simple music forms
• Experience and perform independent parts while others sing or play
• Understand and creatively interpret expressive markings and cues
• Sing alone and with others, a varied repertoire of music
• Understand music in relation to history and culture

Physical Education

• Learn to apply and demonstrate sports/fitness skills
• Learn active participation, cooperation with others
• Understand staying on task
• Following directions and positive contribution

Health

• Understand goal setting
• Learn about prevention of disease
• Study movement
• Learn about nutrition
• Learn how to reduce risks
• Understand safe and unsafe messages

Technology

• Basic operations and concepts
• Productivity tools that may include word processing database, spreadsheet, graphics, multimedia
• Communication tools
• Technology for research
• Network skills
• Technology skills