3rd grade Science: how to help at home
What your child learns in 3rd grade science in the Alabama Course of Study, and simple things to try at home.
Focus areas this year
- Forces and magnets, life cycles and traits, habitats, and weather and climate
- Science and engineering practices: investigating with fair tests
- Engineering design: solving real problems in Alabama and beyond
Easy ways to practice science at home
- Try a kitchen experiment, such as what dissolves in water and what floats or sinks.
- Keep a simple weather or moon log for a month.
- Ask “What do you think will happen?” and then test it.
- Visit a park, beach or creek and look for living things and their habitats.
What each unit covers
Pushes, Pulls & Forces
Forces as pushes and pulls, contact and non-contact forces (gravity, magnetism, static electricity), friction, how bigger forces change motion more, and helmets and seat belts as safety devices.
Speed & Motion
Practices speed as the distance an object travels in a certain time, inertia (objects keep doing what they are doing until a force acts), and how mass and force affect how quickly motion changes.
Magnets and Static
Children explore how magnets attract and repel, which materials magnets pick up, and how static electricity works in everyday life. This is practice, not a report-card mark.
Magnet Inventions
Practices using what magnets do to solve simple design problems, such as a latch or a sorter, by setting criteria and constraints and running fair tests that change one thing at a time.
Life Cycles
Life cycles of butterflies, frogs and BC salmon, and how babies compare with their parents.
Animal Life Cycles
Life cycles of butterflies, frogs, chickens and mammals, and how some animals change a lot while others look like small adults.
Basic Needs & Life Cycles
Practices the basic needs of organisms (food, water, air, shelter) and the life cycles of plants and animals, including metamorphosis in butterflies and frogs.
Traits & Variation
Practices how plants and animals inherit traits from their parents, how traits vary within a family, and how the environment can change traits like size or health.
Surviving in a Habitat
Practices why some animals live in groups, how small differences in traits can help some individuals survive, and why some organisms do well in a habitat while others cannot survive there.
Weather Hazards & Solutions
Practices judging design solutions that reduce harm from weather hazards like floods, windstorms, lightning and snow, and solutions to problems when habitats change.
Fossils & Long Ago
Your child uses fossils as evidence of organisms that lived long ago and of the environments they lived in, including Alabama's fossil whale.
Weather & Climate
Your child reads weather data to find patterns in a season and compares climates in different regions of the world, including Alabama's.
What the report card levels look like at home
- Beginning
- Just getting started with this idea. Short, regular practice with lots of support helps most.
- Approaching
- Understands parts of it and is building confidence. Keep practicing the tricky parts.
- Meeting
- Has it! Mixed review now and then keeps it strong.
- Exceeding
- Applies it confidently, even in new or harder situations. Try challenge mode and real-life problems.
Your child’s teacher decides the level on the report card. Read the Alabama report card guide.
Common questions
Try a kitchen experiment, such as what dissolves in water and what floats or sinks. Keep a simple weather or moon log for a month. Keep sessions short, about 10 to 15 minutes, and stop on a success.
The Alabama Course of Study 3rd grade science units include Pushes, Pulls & Forces, Speed & Motion, Magnets and Static, Magnet Inventions, Life Cycles, Animal Life Cycles.
Free printable 3rd grade science practice sheet
Questions from every unit, with an answer key.