EL Module 2: Frogs

In this Module, students will use literacy skills to become experts—people who use reading, writing, listening, and speaking to build and share deep knowledge about a topic. The Module begins with students reading poetry and pourquoi tales about different kinds of frogs to generate “why” questions. At the end of the unit, they write their own fictional pourquoi narratives to attempt to answer some of their “why” questions. In Unit 2, students research to find out the real answers to their frog questions and write paragraphs to communicate their research.  In Unit 3, students will form research groups to become experts on various “freaky” frogs—frogs that have unusual adaptations that help them to survive in extreme environments throughout the world. Students will build their reading, research, writing, and collaborative discussion skills through studying their expert frog.

Derived From: EL Education Curriculum - Module 2 Overview

Unit 3: Stories with Addition and Subtraction

• Students will continue this unit into Quarter 2.  This unit on addition and subtraction builds on students’ previous work with these operations in earlier grades. Students will focus on applying strategies such as place value drawings, expanded form, and numbers lines to add and subtract numbers up to and including 1,000.  Students will simultaneously review concepts about place value, regrouping, and ungrouping. Throughout the unit, students will use these operations within the context of one and two step story problems.

Unit 4: Making Sense of Multiplication and Division

• The focus of this unit is for students to build a conceptual understanding of multiplication and division.  This is a large part of the major work of third grade. Within the unit, students will use the properties of multiplication along with multiple strategies including equal groups, arrays, and repeated addition/subtraction to solve and represent multiplication and division problems.  Later in the unit, students will apply these strategies to solve and represent one and two step story problems.

Unit 5: Reasoning with Shapes and Their Attributes

• Students will identify, describe, and reason about the attributes of various quadrilaterals including parallelograms, rectangles, rhombi, trapezoids, and squares.  Students will practice using precise vocabulary to describe and recognize shapes. Students will also learn how to compose and decompose quadrilaterals and triangles.

Derived From: Wake County CMapp Curriculum

Students will complete States of Matter Unit from Quarter 1. This unit is followed by:

Force and Motion

• Students will learn about force, speed, and motion.  Students will infer changes in speed or direction resulting from forces acting on an object.   They will compare the relative speeds (faster or slower) of objects that travel the same distance in different amounts of time. Students will learn about friction and how that can affect the motion of an object as well as the effect of Earth’s gravity on the motion of any object on or near the Earth.

Earth in the Universe

• Students will recognize that the Earth is part of a system called the solar system that includes the Sun (a star), planets, and many moons.  They will learn that Earth is the third planet from the Sun.  Students will recognize that changes in the length and direction of an object’s shadow indicate the changing position of the Sun during the day.

Plants and Ecosystems

• Students will learn how plants survive in their environment.  Students will also learn the structure of a plant and how the parts work together to help the plant survive.  Students will also learn about different soils and how they retain water.

Derived From: Wake County CMapp Curriculum

Geography and Environment

• Students will learn about earth's patterns and understand the five themes of geography: location, place, human-environment interaction, movement and regions.

Derived From: Wake County CMapp Curriculum