3rd Grade

The following units were experienced by students in the 2023-2024 school year. With the changes to the IMAGE program for the 2024-2025 school year, with 5th and 6th grade students once served by IMAGE instead receiving intervention during their What I Need (WIN) Times, there will likely be adjustments made to these units, as well, and potentially brand-new units!

Blue creature with large monkey-like ears, wide eyes, and a yellow beak

Unit 1 - Gerfuls / Bloom's Taxonomy

During the first unit, students will participate in ice breakers to get to know their IMAGE classmates, be introduced to the Gifted Bill of Rights, learn exactly what the IMAGE program is, and become familiar with higher level thinking skills. Students will learn that an educator named Benjamin Bloom originally classified student learning into six different categories. Students will see that much of what is done in traditional classrooms falls under the lower thinking levels (remembering and understanding). However, Grandville teachers are increasingly leading students in the use of higher level skills. In IMAGE, each unit will culminate in a project, which will encourage students to create something related to their learning. This ensures students are tapping into high level thinking during every IMAGE unit. Bloom's levels, from lowest to highest function, are: Remember, Understand, Apply, Analyze, Evaluate, and Create! In order to present this in a student-friendly way, students will use each of Bloom's levels to complete an assignment related to adorable creatures called "Gerfuls." As their unit project, each student will build a habitat so that the Gerfuls can be protected and happy on another planet, Remembering what they learned about the solar system earlier in the unit and Applying it to this unique situation.

Scene in a crowded street of a medieval city or village with many people in period costumes

Unit 2 - Medieval Times / World History

This unit will transport students back to Medieval Europe (400-1500 C.E.). Students will learn all about the feudal system and get to experience each role (peasant, knight, bishop, and king or queen) for one class period. Students will have multiple choices for their unit project to demonstrate their learning. Examples of their choices include creating a family crest, building a marshmallow catapult, keeping a time period journal, writing an illuminated poem, designing a stained glass window, and more. There will also be a culminating activity in which all students participate in a medieval feast. They will enjoy medieval foods, sports, and music at their feast to finish the unit. Parent help at the feast will be welcomed and appreciated!

Pioneers in period clothing traveling on a dark prairie with a covered wagon

Unit 3 - Frontiers '53 / Michigan and United States History

One of our most popular units, Wagon Train West, took students on a gamified journey along the Oregon Trail in 1849. Three years in the making, the new Frontiers '53 unit now sees pioneers traveling the width and breadth of the young state of Michigan, gathering information about its communities, flora, and fauna, and recruiting a diverse range of others who will eventually settle with them in the Upper Peninsula's mineral-rich environs. Their journeys will be documented through in-character journal entries and sketches. Their success depends on teamwork, creative problem-solving, careful inventory management, and more than a little luck! The field trip for this unit will be a visit to Blandford Nature Center where we will explore a one-room schoolhouse, visit a homestead more than a century old, practice their hands at farming, and see a blacksmith at work! Parents are welcome to accompany us on this field trip.

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