Specials

The K-4 elementary vocal music curriculum focuses upon the development of independent musicianship. Singing is the foundation of all music skills as the voice is the instrument. Music skills are sequentially taught through the musical processes of performing, responding, creating and connecting. Students develop independent musicianship by learning to read and write musical notation through grade appropriate songs. Exploring movement and creating new arrangements of music through song games and rounds allows students to make choices towards innovative solutions. Students listen and respond to music making cultural connections with language arts, social studies, art, and science through interdisciplinary learning. Communicating through the language of music enables students to independently explore the world around them through self-expression.

String instrument lessons continue in third grade. Students have a thirty-minute lesson and a forty-minute group instruction class each week.

Students in grades K-4 explore and create art work using subject matter of architecture, design, landscape, portrait, still life, and symbol systems. They have many opportunities to explore a variety of materials while building and practicing skills and techniques that increase in complexity with each grade. Art units integrate classroom themes in language arts, social studies, math, and science, and students develop an ability to transfer and apply knowledge from one situation to another, which results in deep authentic learning. Following the Arts Propel model of perception, production and reflection, students gain understanding and appreciation of the visual arts and their role in the world around them, across cultures and throughout history.

Physical Education: Third grade students begin to purposefully apply their increasingly mature fundamental skills in increasingly more complex and specialized environments. For instance, in a modified game, students are challenged to throw both close and far from the body, while standing still or running, and to targets that can be stationary or moving. Students are challenged to take discrete gymnastic-like skills they have developed, such as rolling or jumping and landing, and to start combining these skills with smooth transitions and connecting movement between them. Third grade students utilize their growing movement vocabulary as they work in small groups and begin to assess their own performance as well as the performance of others. Students also experience practicing the Connecticut Physical Fitness Assessment (CPFA) and understanding their own results.

Health & Wellness: In grade three, students continue to study nutrition by learning to plan a healthy menu for a day using the food pyramid as a guide. They chart their daily physical activity and set personal fitness goals. “Home Alone” and “Bike, Skateboard, In-Line Skating Safety and Fire Safety” presentations are made to each third grade classroom by the Farmington Youth Officer and the Farmington Fire Department. Students learn to express feelings in healthy, appropriate ways.