Academics
Lower School

Grade 3

Increasing Clarity, Precision, and Collaboration
Our energetic third-grade students are primed for a year of exciting changes. The first is their move to classrooms on the second floor of the Lower School wing, which symbolizes the increase in expectations for independence, collaboration, and application of the foundational skills they have gained in earlier years. By the end of third grade, students become self-assured, independent thinkers who are able to solve problems with creative strategies, set goals, and present their thinking with increasing clarity and precision. They know when to use their own resources and when to seek adult help.

In third grade, the amount of collaborative work increases, and guidance is provided for how that looks, sounds, and feels. This is the age when students begin to emerge as leaders; develop the language and thinking skills to more clearly formulate and express their viewpoints; and demonstrate the greater social acumen to vary their coping skills in challenging situations. It is also a time when they are vulnerable to frustration when faced with difficult tasks in areas of personal weakness. Faculty members are aware of scaffolding assignments and providing support and a sense of security for each student.

Children practice combining skills and strategies to read fluently with meaning and purpose. Reading and writing occur across the disciplines, and stories and reports are increasingly more detailed as well as persuasive, informative, and/or entertaining. Comprehension skills in listening are also fostered as it is essential that students are able to answer questions about and infer information from what has been heard or read. We value the development of a child’s language and literacy skills as the groundwork for academic learning and achievement. Likewise, the early foundation that has been laid in mathematics is evident as they apply their conceptual knowledge to larger numbers and more sophisticated concepts related to place value, fractions and decimals, geometry, and patterns and algebraic thinking.

Highlights of the Third-Grade Experience

List of 7 items.

  • Pioneer Life

    Reenact life in a nineteenth-century one-room school house for three days

  • Trading Rendezvous

    Trade handmade items at a traditional Fur Trading Rendezvous

  • Relive History

    Travel to The Grove, a living history museum and village in Glenview, IL

  • Developing Writers

    Construct well-researched and developed essays, including animal adaptation reports

  • Building Relationships

    Forge relationships in the School community through House events and activities with senior kindergarten buddies

  • Exploring our World

    Studying diversity and adaptations of prairie plants and insects, and learn to identify tracks and signs of local animals on field trips to Lake Forest Open Lands

  • Design Thinking

    Build, test, and modify the throwing distance of student-designed and student-engineered catapults

Curriculum Guide

Faculty

List of 9 members.

A co-educational independent private school for students age 2 through Grade 8.
Graduating students of strong character with a passion for learning since 1888.
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Lake Forest Country Day School

145 South Green Bay Road
Lake Forest, IL 60045
P: 847-234-2350
F: 847-234-2352