3rd Grade

Welcome to 3rd grade! This is an exciting transition year into the intermediate level building on the strong foundation formed in the primary grades. Our goals are to be responsible, respectful, live like Jesus, and be safe each day.

Each week we incorporate learning activities to develop social skills through the Boy's Town model. Third graders have many opportunities to develop social skills throughout the day as they partner up to practice and reinforce skills learned in language arts, math, science/health, and social studies. The students build confidence in sharing,as well as listening skills through monthly speeches, Poetry Day, and weekly circle share time.

The third grade curriculum follows the Omaha Archdiocesan standards. We practice numbers sense and operations of addition, subtraction, multiplication, and division, also algebra, geometry, measurement, data analysis and probability, and problem solving. Third graders learn to build reading stamina when using phonetic skills to sound out and spell new words. All genres of literature are used while developing comprehension and fluency skills. We write our thoughts not only in language arts, but also across the curriculum. Communities of the past and the present, as well as Nebraska history, and map skills are studied. As scientists, we compare and contrast living vs nonliving, look at phases of matter, ecosystems, food webs and chains, the food pyramid with nutrition, earth and space, weather, magnetism, and electrical circuits. In religion we study what it means to be Catholic, study the sacraments, prepare and participate in school masses, learn about saints, discuss and act out weekly gospel readings, participate in Advent and Lenten prayer services, and reach out to our community through acts of kindness.

St. Mary's is a wonderful place to grow academically, socially, especially in our Catholic faith. It is a joy to be able to guide the 3rd graders and watch them blossom into wonderful citizens in our community!