In Grade 3, multilingual learners in ELD/ESL classes continue to build their skills as readers, writers, speakers, and listeners while exploring meaningful topics from science and social studies. ESL class does not replace classroom instruction—rather, it supports and strengthens language development so students can participate fully and confidently in all subjects. Grade 3 unit topics include: Helping in Communities; Balance in Nature; and The Amazing World of Plants.
Our Multilingual (ML) teachers implement an ESL Curriculum using National Geographic Reach Higher resources to provide rich stories, visuals, and informational texts, and they design lessons with the WIDA Standards Framework, which guides how students grow in social and academic English across listening, speaking, reading, and writing.
Students will explain why helping others is important in a community.
Students will identify the central message in stories about helping.
Students will describe characters’ choices and explain how they solve problems.
Students will use descriptive language to tell or write their own helping stories.
Students will share ideas about how kindness and helping build stronger communities.
How can I use stories and examples to explain why helping others matters?
How can I describe characters’ choices and the problems they solve?
How can I find and share the main message of a story about kindness?
How can I write or tell my own story about helping in my community?
How does helping make relationships and communities stronger?
Can you tell me a story you read about someone helping others?
What was the problem in the story, and how did the character solve it?
What was the main lesson or message you learned from the story?
Can you think of a time when you or someone in our family helped someone else?
How does helping others make people feel?
How does helping make our community stronger?
Suggested Activities:
Read Together in Any Language
Read a book in your home language or in English about kindness and helping others.
Pause to ask: What was the problem? How did the character help? What lesson did the story teach us?
Family Helping Stories
Share a real story about a time someone in your family helped another person.
Ask your child to retell the story in your home language or English, or write/draw what happened.
Switch roles—your child tells a helping story from school or the community.
Community Connections
Walk around your neighborhood or talk about community helpers (like mail carriers, doctors, or firefighters).
Ask your child: How do they help others? Why is their job important?
Students will explain how plants, animals, and resources are connected in an ecosystem.
Students will describe what happens when nature loses balance, such as during drought or when resources are limited.
Students will identify cause-and-effect relationships in stories, articles, and diagrams about ecosystems.
Students will use evidence from texts and observations to explain how ecosystems change.
Students will organize and share their ideas clearly about why balance in nature is important for the health of the planet.
How can I explain how all parts of nature are connected?
How can I describe what happens when an ecosystem loses its balance?
How can I find and explain cause-and-effect relationships in texts about ecosystems?
How can I use evidence from different sources to support my ideas?
Why is balance in nature important for people, plants, and animals?
What does it mean when nature is “in balance”?
What happens when one part of an ecosystem, like water or food, is missing?
Can you give an example of a cause-and-effect relationship in nature?
How does the health of plants and animals affect people too?
What new science words did you learn to talk about ecosystems?
Suggested Activities:
Read Together in Any Language
Read a book in your home language or in English about ecosystems and balance in nature
Ask: What was the main idea of the story or article?
Why is balance in nature important for people, plants, and animals?
What cause-and-effect relationships did you notice?
Nature Observation
Look at plants, animals, or insects in your yard, park, or neighborhood.
Ask: How do these living things depend on each other?
Have your child describe what they see using cause-and-effect words like because, so, if.
Compare Ecosystems
Choose two ecosystems (like desert and rainforest).
Talk about how plants and animals adapt differently.
Use comparison words like same, different, both, also.
Students will explain why plants are important for people, animals, and the environment.
Students will describe how plants grow and survive in different conditions.
Students will identify main ideas and details in stories, articles, and diagrams about plants.
Students will analyze evidence to explain what makes plants unique and amazing.
Students will use scientific vocabulary to share ideas about plant life
How can I explain why plants are important to people and the world?
How can I describe how plants grow and survive in different conditions?
How can I find the main ideas and details in texts about plants?
What makes plants unique and amazing organisms?
How can I use observations and evidence to explain the role of plants in every environment?
Why are plants important to people, animals, and the Earth?
How do plants grow and survive in different places (like cities, deserts, or rainforests)?
What was the main idea of a story, article, or diagram you studied about plants?
What is one amazing fact you learned about plants this week?
What new science words did you learn to describe plant life?
Suggested Activities:
Read Together in Any Language
Read a book in your home language or in English about plants.
Ask: How did the plant grow or survive?; Why is this plant important to people or the environment?
Plant Observation Journal
Grow a seed in a cup or observe a plant outside.
Have your child draw and label changes over time.
Practice sentences: The plant is ___ because it has ___.
Compare Plant Habitats
Look at pictures of plants from different environments (cactus in a desert, orchid in a rainforest).
Ask: How are these plants the same? How are they different?
Use words like both, same, different, but.