3rd  Grade  Language  Arts  

Celebrating Traditions

For the next few weeks, or class will be reading the theme Celebrating Traditions

Your child will explore ways people across the United States celebrate family and

cultural traditions and how these traditions enrich their lives.

Theme related activities to do together

Designer You

Have your child list several visual symbols for things he or she enjoys (for example, a soccer ball if he or she plays soccer).  Then help your child plan a square for a cloth quilt or a collage that includes these symbols.

Prisms and Raianbows

Help your child research prisms and write several sentences that explain how light passing through a prism can create a rainbow.  Then have your child explain in his or her own words how a prism can “make a rainbo”

Music and Dance

Together with your child look for videos or audio tapes with music from various cultures.  Listen to the tapes together and identify the subject of the music. Is it celebratory?  Does it tell a story?

                                                                                                

                                                       Theme-related Books to Enjoy Together!

The Wedding  by Angela Johnson.  Orchard 1999.

A Picnic in October by Eve Bunting.  Harcourt 1999 

Song of Shiprock Fair by Luci Tapahonso.  Kiva 1999

Seven Candles for Kwanzaa by Andrea Davis Pinkney. Dial 1993

Moon Festival by Ching Yeung Russell. Boyds Mills 1997