This parent guide supports parents in helping their child at home with the 3rd grade English Language Arts content.

This resource, which is a direct download, is a lesson plan for "Aero and Office Mike" by Joan Plummer Russell. "Aero and Officer Mike is an informational text about a police officer and his partner, a dog named Aero. Information about their daily routine, Aero's special talents, and Officer Mike's training is included.

In this lesson, collaborative groups will read a variety of American tall tales, then report elements of their story to the whole class. Students add story information to a collaborative, whole-class character study matrix that summarizes all the stories. In a writing activity, students compare two characters of their choice. The lesson process is applicable to any set of related texts.

In this lesson designed for struggling readers, students are guided through a viewing of David Wiesner’s Tuesday, a wordless picture book. As students view the images, they are asked four different types of questions about the pictures. The questions range in difficulty from those with answers that can be found in the text to those that require inferences. Students learn to categorize questions by the four question types and use pictures to help them better understand a story. Students then apply what they learned to an independent reading of Istvan Banyai's Zoom. Students complete a worksheet with a series of questions about the story and then reflect on the usefulness of the questioning strategy.

A BioBag is a kind of literature autobiography, a collection of written works that represent memories or milestones in a person’s life. This might include books, letters, diaries, and recipes, all representing various aspects of a life story. In this lesson, the teacher starts by sharing his or her own BioBag with the class. Next, students visit a website to learn about several children's authors and the texts that inspired them. Then students interview one another about the texts that have been important in their lives. Finally, students put together their own BioBags and present them to the class.

In this lesson, students read Bullfrog at Magnolia Circle in chunks of three to five pages, each of while corresponds to a main idea about adaptations: habitat, predators and prey, and life cycle.

Students will focus on the characters in stories; choose precise words and reasoning to describe characters and how their actions contribute to the story.

In this unit, students learn that effective citizens are committed to protecting rights for themselves, other citizens, and future generations, by upholding their civic responsibilities and are aware of the potential consequences of inaction. Students also learn distinctions between a citizen's rights, responsibilities, and priviledges help to define the requirements and limits of personal freedom.

In this lesson, students This lesson begins a two-day close reading cycle with a new chunk of Bullfrog at Magnolia Circle. Yet these two lessons focus on page 32, which is structured much more like a "typical" informational text, with expository paragraphs and a glossary.

This lesson follows the same structure as Lesson 2, and begins a two-day close reading cycle with a new chunk of Bullfrog at Magnolia Circle. This time, the focus is on bullfrog reproduction and life cycle, and physical characteristics. Students again linger on just one section for two lessons, in order to both build their awareness of choosing words for effect.

This lesson introduces a new kinesthetic vocabulary activity (see Part B of Work Time). Students basically act out sentences from this section of Bullfrog at Magnolia Circle.

In this lesson, students continue close reading of pages 8-11 and 16-25 of Bullfrog at Magnolia Circle.

This lesson focuses on helping students to synthesize main ideas about the bullfrog. It also helps them to see how page 32 differs (in structure, style, and purpose) from the other pages of Bullfrog at Magnolia Circle.

In this lesson, students begin to explicitly focus on their ability to engage in collaborative discussions.

In this lesson, students will see how artistic materials can extend knowledge. This lesson provides opportunities for students to explore and experience the meaning potential of everyday writing and drawing tools in their own writing. The lesson can adapted for older students.

In this lesson, students begin by working in small groups to analyze differences and similarities among a selection of comics from a variety of subgenres. Based on their discussion, they determine what subgenres are represented and divide the comics accordingly. Students then analyze the professional comics' uses of conventions such as layout and page design. Finally, they create their own comics using an online tool.

In this lesson from Expeditionary Learning, students will perform a close reading of Thank You, Mr. Falker by Patricia Polacco. They will answer questions using specific details from the text and explain why they chose those details. Students will also use context clues to access new vocabulary. This is Lesson 2 of 10 from the unit Grade 3 Curriculum Map Unit 2, Module 1: http://engageny.org/resource/grade-3-ela-module-1-unit-2 .

In this lesson, students summarize biographies of leaders, including Abraham Lincoln, Harriet Tubman, Sojourner Truth, Rosa Parks, Frederick Douglass, Ida B. Wells, Lydia Maria Child, William Lloyd Garrison, Claudette Colvin, and Martin Luther King, Jr.

In this lesson, students answer questions using specific details from the text and determine the meaning of new vocabulary using clues in the text around a word.

Engaging students in their education is not always easy. One way is to give them the opportunity to be involved in school event decision making processes. Providing them with a task, having them poll their peers, and then using the analyzed data to inform their decisions is sure to keep them engaged.