At Hamline Elementary, we have two third grade classrooms. Class size is approximately 25 students per classroom. Our student body is diverse with many native languages and cultures. We celebrate all diversity and all are welcome at Hamline. We also have an ELL teacher to support this grade level.

Reading: We follow Minnesota's common core standards. We also follow the suggested skills/strategy sets from Jennifer Serravello's work. These reading strategies consist of comprehension monitoring, determining important ideas and main idea, generating questions, sequencing, cause and effect, point of view, compare/contrast, describing characters, themes, visualizing, summarizing, and understanding text structure.

Students receive individualized guided reading instruction in small groups and are expected to read independently both at school and at home on a daily basis. As a part of SPPS requirements, our third grade team also utilizes FAST software that includes reading assessments, progress monitoring, data analysis and interventions.

Math: We follow SPPS's new math guidelines. This new way we teach and interact with math is hands on and works from starting with concrete and working our way to abstract concepts. Some important concepts we cover are: place value from ones to ten thousands, rounding numbers, adding and subtracting multi-digit numbers, multiplication facts, fractions, input and output, algebra, geometry, measurement (units, time, money, temperature) and collecting, organizing and analyzing data in tables, bar graphs, picture graphs and number line plots.

Writing: our writing curriculum is the Writer’s Workshop model. Students keep a Writer’s Notebook where they focus on the writing process. Throughout the year, we study a variety of writing genres. There are several writing projects that culminate in a published piece.

 Social Studies: Our state standards focus around Citizenship and Government, Economics, Geography and History.

 Specialists: We have science, physical education, and creator space. In science, students work on observing, planning, conducting, modeling, and organizing various investigations including sunlight, water, moon and stars. Physical education teaches important skills for healthy, lifelong habits and provides an opportunity for students to learn about different sports and games. Creator space is an area where students are presented inquiry challenges while incorporating our school competencies as well as other content areas.

Our school also has a unique partnership with the University across the street, Hamline University. We have tutors, hand-in-hand buddies and academic as well as athletic partnerships with various departments.

Apps we use in school:

- SeeSaw

- ST Math

- Epic! Reading

- Raz Kids

- Pebble Go

- Britannica

- Code.org