Everything you need to know about Third Grade Math with Confidence. Includes an overview of what your child will learn, a downloadable sample, answers to frequently asked questions, and buying information.
In this article, you’ll find all the information specific to Third Grade Math with Confidence:
- How the program and lessons are organized
- What your child will learn
- What you’ll need
- Placement advice
- Where to buy the books
For information about the series as a whole (or information on other grade levels), please see this article: Overview of Math with Confidence Homeschool Math Curriculum.
Wishing you all the best in your teaching! Happy Third Grade Math!
What’s the program’s format?
Third Grade Math with Confidence is a complete third-grade math program with three volumes: an Instructor Guide and two Student Workbooks.
- The Instructor Guide is the core of the program, with conversational and hands-on activities and games that teach the key skills and concepts.
- The two Student Workbooks (Part A and Part B ) provide lesson activities, practice, and review. Workbook Part A covers Units 1-8, and Workbook Part B covers Units 9-16.
What does a typical lesson look like?
Most pilot families spent an average of 25-35 minutes on each lesson, with 10-15 minutes of parent-led instruction and 15-20 minutes of independent work. However, this will vary depending on your teaching style and your child’s learning style—and whether you have any toddlers interrupting you!
Each lesson includes 3 parts:
- Memory Work and Warm-up. Each lesson begins with a few memory work review questions and a quick warm-up activity. The warm-up activity eases your child into math time and helps start the lesson on a confident and positive note.
- Lesson Activities with Parent. Next, you’ll use the scripted lesson plan and Lesson Activities page in the workbook to teach your child new concepts and skills. For example, you might roll dice to play a multiplication fact game, use a ruler to measure in quarter-inches, or calculate elapsed time for a pretend day camp schedule.
- Independent Practice. Last, your child will complete the Practice and Review workbook pages. On the Practice page, he’ll practice the new concept or skill you taught him. On the Review page, he’ll review previously-learned skills so that he retains them well.
Four in a Row.
What’s New in Third Grade?
If you used earlier levels of Math with Confidence, you’ll find a few changes in Third Grade Math with Confidence to match your child’s growing math maturity:
Units, Not Weeks
The lessons are grouped into units, not weeks. This gives you more flexibility with your schedule and allows the number of lessons in each unit to vary depending on what skills need to be covered. Each unit focuses on developing thorough understanding of one main concept, such as multiplication, area and perimeter, or fractions.
There are 16 units in all. Units vary in length from 6 to 12 lessons, and there are a total of 144 lessons. The final lesson in each unit is an optional enrichment lesson.
128 are regular lessons, and 16 are optional enrichment lessons. You’re welcome to adjust the number of lessons you teach per week to best fit your family’s schedule. Some families prefer to teach math 5 days per week, while others prefer to teach math 4 days per week and leave one day open for co-ops, errands, or field trips.
Use the following guidelines to plan your year:
- If you teach 4 lessons per week and teach all the enrichment lessons, Third Grade Math with Confidence will take you 36 weeks.
- If you teach 4 lessons per week and skip the enrichment lessons, Third Grade Math with Confidence will take you 32 weeks.
- If you teach 5 lessons per week and teach all the enrichment lessons, Third Grade Math with Confidence will take you 29 weeks.
- If you teach 5 lessons per week and skip the enrichment lessons, Third Grade Math with Confidence will take you 26 weeks.
Use this list as a rough guide to planning your year, but don’t set it in stone. You’ll generally be able to cover one lesson per day, but you may occasionally find that you want to split a lesson over two days.
Three Workbook Pages Per Lesson
Every regular lesson now includes a Lesson Activities page in the workbook (in addition to Practice and Review). These pages provide visual aids, practice exercises, and game boards all in one place to streamline and simplify your teaching. No more game boards to save, and many fewer blackline masters to manage! The Lesson Activities pages are designed for you to complete with your child during your hands-on teaching time (and not meant for your child to complete independently.)
For example, in lesson 2.1, you’ll use the scripted lesson in the Instructor Guide and this Lesson Activities page to introduce the concept of multiplication and record multiplication equations to match “cookie orders” that you’ll model with counters.
Then, your child will then independently practice writing multiplication equations on the Practice page and review skills like place-value, fractions, money, and addition on the Review page.
Unit Wrap-up (Review or Assessment)
The enrichment lesson at the end of each unit now includes a two-page Unit Wrap-Up. You can use the Unit Wrap-Ups to casually review the unit, or you can use them as tests to assess your child’s progress more formally. If you live in a state that requires a portfolio, they’re a great way to show your child’s learning and progress.
Can I download a sample?
Yes indeed! You’ll find the full introduction, scope and sequence, and materials list, plus a variety of lessons from across the year so that you get a good sense of the program as a whole. Make sure to download both files so that you can see how the Instructor Guide complements the Student Workbook.
What will my child learn?
Third Grade Math with Confidence is a full-year, comprehensive curriculum that covers everything your child needs to learn in third grade. She’ll learn how to:
- Read, write, compare, and understand place value in numbers to 10,000
- Add and subtract numbers to 10,000
- Master multiplication facts (up to 10 times 10) and division facts (up to 100 divided by 10)
- Multiply one-digit numbers by multiples of 10
- Use addition, subtraction, multiplication, and division to solve word problems (including two-step word problems)
- Find the area and perimeter of rectangles, squares, and shapes composed of rectangles
- Read, write, and compare fractions
- Identify simple equivalent fractions and add and subtract fractions with the like denominators
- Solve measurement problems involving elapsed time, length, weight, and capacity
- Identify right angles, rectangles, squares, and rhombuses
- Identify faces, edges, and vertices in 3-D shapes
What materials will I need?
I’ve kept the materials list as simple and budget-friendly as possible, just like in the earlier levels of Math with Confidence: base-ten blocks, counters, coins, play money, playing cards, dice, a clock with hands, fraction circles, a ruler, blank paper, a dry erase marker, and a few plastic page protectors. (I also recommend a binder with plastic page protectors for storing blackline masters and game boards.)
Is my child ready to start Third Grade Math with Confidence?
Your child is ready to start Third Grade Math with Confidence if she can:
- Count to 1,000 by 1s, 2s, 5s, and 10s.
- Read, write, and compare 3-digit numbers.
- Understand place-value in 3-digit numbers
- Know the addition and subtraction facts mostly be heart. (He should be able to recall the answers to most within 3 seconds of so.)
- Know how to use place-value strategies to solve mental math problems like 55+37, 36+8, 90-42, or 74-6
- Know how to add and subtract two and three-digit numbers with the standard written process. (You might know this method as “stack method” or “borrowing and carrying.”)
(Note that this is the bare minimum list of skills your child should know before starting Third Grade Math with Confidence. It is not a full list of everything covered in Second Grade Math with Confidence.)
If your child is not fluent with the addition and subtraction facts but knows the rest of the skills listed above,
he is probably ready to begin Third Grade Math with Confidence. Make sure to add 5 minutes of daily addition and subtraction facts practice to each lesson until your child becomes more fluent with the facts.
If you have more questions about placement, check out this article for more advice and answers to frequently asked questions:
How are enrichment activities and picture books incorporated?
Each unit includes an enrichment lesson with a picture book and real-life math application activity. These are completely optional, and you can include as many or as few as you want over the course of the year. Many of them are also available as read-alouds on Youtube.
Will there be other grades? Is Math with Confidence a full series?
Yes! Math with Confidence will be a comprehensive kindergarten through sixth grade math curriculum once it’s complete. See this article for the release dates and more information on other grades.
Where can I buy Third Grade Math with Confidence?
Print copies are available at Well-Trained Mind Press, Amazon, and homeschool booksellers.
Digital copies (PDFs) are available directly from Well-Trained Mind Press.
Is the printer-friendly version still in colour or is it grayscale?
It’s in color. If you prefer to print in black and white, you can set that in your printer settings.
Happy Math!
Kate
Can’t wait to use this level. This will be our first year and my daughter is ready. Already, pre-ordered off of Christian books when they had 40% off there site. Keep up the good work. Are you planning to go higher than level 6?
Yes, I do plan to stop after sixth grade. (I will be ready for a break after seven years of intense writing!) Thanks for the kind words, and hope you have a great year of third grade math!
Your welcome. I would want a break too. Good Luck.
This may be a silly question, but where can I find and download just the spine of each book? We’re printing each grade level this year and would like to have spine inserts for our girls’ 3 ring binders.
Sorry, I’m afraid my publisher doesn’t make them available. Hope you have a wonderful year of math!
Kate
Can you make a video or blog post about math with confidence third grade in comparison to grade level standards for third grade?
Like, at the end will it match up to all the standards for math or are a few not covered in this third grade math with confidence? And if not, which ones are not or which ones are ?
Hi Janet,
I don’t anticipate making a video, but I can tell you that Third Grade MWC covers roughly the same material as most public schools. The main topics for third grade are multiplication and division facts and concepts, understanding fractions and adding and subtracting fractions with common denominators, area and perimeter, and multi-step word problems. The two minor standards that I chose not to cover in Third Grade MWC are line plots and fractions on the number line. These will both be covered in Fourth Grade MWC (and can be figured out pretty easily by kids who use Third Grade MWC!)
Happy Math!
Kate
Will level 3 teach times tables?
Yes indeed! The multiplication facts are an important focus in Third Grade MWC, with the goal that most children will have them memorized up to x10 by the end of the year. x11 and x12 will be covered in Fourth Grade MWC.
Happy Math!
Kate
Big fan of your MWC series and Math Facts That Stick. They’ve made teaching & learning math enjoyable for my family, after several years of trying curriculums that just didn’t work for the kids or myself. I only wish my older son was able to use MWC (we still used MFTS though)!
I was wondering if coloured copies of the Memory Work graphic pages will be available for Grade 3? I love the one we have for Grade 2. The colour helps my child quickly and easily reference it on our wall.
Can’t wait to start the Grade 3 books this fall! Thank-you for all that you do.
Sorry, we didn’t make a colored version for Third Grade. Perhaps your child could use colored pencils to add a little color to the blackline master?
I’m so glad MWC is working well for your family, and best wishes in your teaching!
Kate
Could MWC level 3 be used for a 8th grader with special needs?
Yes, absolutely.