Why do I teach? I love it when a child understands what I am teaching and their eyes light up because they are so proud of their accomplishment.                                                               What I love about teaching at St. Barbara School: I love that the parents get involved with their childs education and support the faculty.

Curriculum

Religion: The third grade curriculum focuses on The Church.  Students learn that the church is apostolic and our mission as Catholics is to continue to follow and spread God's word.  Students learn to do loving acts of kindness as a way of everyday life. Stories from the Old and New Testament are introduced to help the students learn the history of their religious beliefs.  The Liturgical year is covered as well as saints, holy days, and important figures in our church.  Mary is an important figure that students learn about.  They learn how they can serve God by following her example.  Students learn and memorize important prayers that help them be active participants in the mass.  Another important lesson that the students learn is how to pray the rosary.  Part of the religious program focuses on being responsible for planning and participating in seasonal prayer service, school masses, and school prayers. Being a Faith Partner to a younger student is another responsibility for third graders.  Students help their Faith Partners at mass and also work on school projects together.  The Family Life Program covers God's gifts to us.  Through the gifts of Family, Self, Life, Love and Community, students learn how God's love surrounds them.  The Second Step Program teaches students how to solve conflict situation in their lives by learning how to use practical and logical methods to come to a peaceful solution.

Math: All lessons follow the Core and State Standards.  Manipulatives are used to enhance the learning experience.  Manipulatives not only help the tactile learner grasp the concept of the mathematical process but also auditory and visual learners benefit from this approach as well.  Students continue to use prior knowledge in addition and subtraction to advance onto more challenging skills.  Students then proceed onto multiplication and division facts up to 10.  Other topics covered with multiplication and division are Family of Facts and money.  Other skills covered are geometry, where students will learn about lines of symmetry, identifying slides, flips, and turns of objects.  Fractions are taught by using fraction strips to help identify fractions from a whole, write fractions from least to greatest, and find fractional parts of money.  Algebra is introduced where students learn the order of mathematical operations, determine missing operational signs, and find common factors of two numbers.

Language Arts: The language arts curriculum builds on skills that are specified in the Core and State Standards.  Students cover nouns, pronouns, verbs, adjectives, adverbs and prepositions. Grammar rules are reviewed and practiced in greater detail.  Writing skills are enhanced by having students learn a variety of writing styles.  Personal, narrative, persuasive, compare and contrast, expository, and story writing as well as poetry are taught.  Learning how to use a variety of resources to write reports is an important skill that is introduced.  Rubrics are used to help students learn what is expected of them when completing an assignment.  Students also create a personal writing notebook that they use all year to help them see their progress in their writing abilities.  Daily Oral Language (D.O.L.) is used to practice and enhance the student's skills on capitalization, spelling and punctuation.

Science: The third grade science program builds on skills previously learned in past grades. Students continue to use the Scientific Method to investigate science topics in greater detail. Using higher level thinking skills, the students learn about Plants and Animals, Our Earth, Fossils and Fuels, Landforms and Saving our Resources.  Simple Machines and matter are also discussed in the science curriculum.  Students use computers to enhance and expand on topics discussed in class.  Movies are also used to bring topics alive in the classroom.  Hands on experiments help all students become actively engaged in their learning experience about the world around them.

Social Studies: The social studies program highlights the variety of communities in the United States; rural, suburban, farm towns, and urban.  Students learn and discuss the customs, celebrations, and diversity of the people in the United States.  Early explorers who were important in the formation of America are discussed as well.  Students learn about their country's natural resources and how these resources help our nation as well as other countries in the world. Learning about producing goods, offering services, and being a consumer are also topics covered.  Governments of the past are introduced to show how these governments helped set the foundation for our present government.  Students learn about their local government and community helpers.  State and community leaders are also highlighted and students learn about community services that are available in their neighborhoods.  Citizenship is also an important topic that is covered and students learn what they can do to become a good citizen in their communities.

Reading: The third grade reading program consists of two basal reading books which have a variety of genre.  These include Tale Tales, Folk Tales, nonfiction, Fables, Biographies, Autobiographies, Historical Fiction, and Fiction.  Literacy skills are covered which includes, Drama, Expository, Narrative, Nonfiction, Realistic Fiction, Idioms, Similies, Metaphors, Fantasy, and Myths.  Graphic organizers, tables, charts, and vocabulary guides are used to help the students better understand what they are reading.  Weekly selection tests are given to check for comprehension as well as other forms of formal and informal methods of assessment.  Student skills are assessed three times a year (beginning, middle and end of year) to check student progress.  Through these research based assessments, students work in a whole group setting and in flexible groups to help them focus and stay engaged in their learning.  Phonics is also included in the reading program where students use prior knowledge to review phonetic skills. Spelling is part of the reading program as well.  Spelling words correlate with the stories that are being read and are used in context for a better understanding of their meaning.  A variety of ways are used to review spelling works such as creating word searches, crossword puzzles, games, and review tests.