Grade 3 Scope

How to read this scope

Each unit_id in the frontmatter resolves to a unit file under units/. start_day/end_day map the unit onto the 180-day school year; the list is a continuous sequence from day 1 to day 180 with no gaps or overlaps. domain and pillar name the primary domain(s) and pillar(s) each unit serves. domain_weighting expresses the intended balance of instructional time across the ten domains, in percent of the year. lesson_count counts the core lessons; the days between lessons carry flex time, assessment, integration, and celebration. assessment_plan describes how a child’s growth is seen and recorded at this level.

Year at a glance

The Grade 3 year is a spiral that deepens what Grade 2 began. It opens inward. Mixed Feelings, My Story & My Goals builds on Grade 2’s telling similar feelings apart and noticing where a feeling lives in the body: now children describe how a feeling changes over time and name when they feel more than one feeling at once, and explain how the same situation can make different people feel differently — the first real step of perspective-taking. They tell the story of their own life so far, in order, with its important people and places, name the several groups that shape who they are, set a simple goal and its first step, and practice managing a strong feeling in a group without disrupting others. My Body, My Senses & Movement then reads the body with new precision: how two senses work together to give a fuller picture, the early signals of hunger, fullness, thirst, and tiredness and a helpful response to each, movement sequences with rhythm and balance, and hand-eye coordination through games of tossing, catching, and aiming.

Caring, Perspective & Belonging turns outward into the practice of care. Where Grade 2 learned to give encouragement and resolve a disagreement with words, Grade 3 learns to take turns speaking and build on what a classmate said, to use “I” statements without blame, to retell a story from another character’s point of view and imagine being someone else in a familiar place, to compare their own community with one far away, to explain how rules and routines help a community work fairly, and to contribute fairly to a group goal. The heart of the year is given to the two great tools of school, now working with real independence. Reading, Writing & Many Languages builds fluency and comprehension: reading grade-level texts with accuracy and self-correction, finding the main idea and its supporting details, writing a paragraph with a topic sentence, supporting details, and a closing, revising and editing one’s own work for spelling, punctuation, and clarity, and using simple everyday phrases in another language — always in the learner’s home language first, with multilingualism held as wealth. Numbers, Shapes, Patterns & Data grows from Grade 2’s place value to 100 into place value to 1,000, multiplication and division within 100 with their meaning, arithmetic patterns in tables and number grids, two-step word problems using all four operations, the area and perimeter of rectangles, sorting shapes by their shared attributes, measuring liquid volume and mass with standard units, and drawing scaled picture and bar graphs — mathematics as sense-making with real things, drawn from many traditions, for everyone.

From there the year looks out at the world. Fair Tests & the Changing World turns wonder into a fair test: change one thing and keep the rest the same, record what the data show, trace a food chain through producers, consumers, and decomposers, name the parts of a plant and what each helps the plant do, describe the three states of matter and how heating and cooling change them, feel how a push or pull changes motion and what friction does, and explain how Earth’s turning brings day and night, its orbit the seasons, and wind, water, and ice the shaping of the land. Making, Music & Movement gives the whole body and the imagination to pattern, rhythm, dance, and design, and Healthy, Safe & Strong returns to the body with growing independence — what a body needs to stay healthy and why each need matters, where food comes from and how it reaches a table, first aid for minor hurts, and safe and unsafe touch, with the correct names and the right to say no and tell an adult.

The final third steps into the wider human story. People, Places & Long Ago places local events and landmarks on timelines, follows how a place changes over a long time and what causes one change, compares how two peoples met basic needs for food, shelter, and clothing, hears a story, song, or art form and what it shows a culture values, traces why people move, and how rivers, mountains, and climate shaped where people settled — and hears stories of people working together to change something unfair. Fairness & Our Shared Rules weighs reasons for and against a choice, tells needs from wants, notices when someone is left out and how to make it more fair, proposes a rule with a reason, and practices talking through a conflict and repairing harm rather than only punishing. Tools, Media & Our Earth Home meets simple machines and how they make work easier, tells an advertisement from information and reads a message’s purpose and audience, traces a food chain and the way plants make their own food from sunlight, and distinguishes resources that run out from those that come back — with a first sense of what we can do. The year closes by gathering all of it together in All of Me, All of Us, celebrating each whole person and the caring community, and looking ahead to Grade 4.

Throughout, the four pillars are interwoven. Intellectual awareness (P3) carries the most weight — reading and writing toward fluency and comprehension, multiplication and division, and fair testing are the year’s central work — but emotional and social awareness (P1) and physical and somatic awareness (P2) remain strong, for a known, cared-for, and capable body-and-self is still the ground all formal learning stands on. Contextual and ecological awareness (P4) keeps growing: history moves from simple timelines toward comparison and cause, civics toward reasons, rules, and repairing harm, and ecology toward food chains, resources, and the first responsibilities of stewardship. No high-stakes tests anywhere: a child’s growth is seen through reading aloud, writing, number work with real things, fair tests, and a portfolio of what they make, say, and do.