Unit Plan 1 (Grade 3 Math): Building Our Math Community & Problem-Solving Norms

Focus: Establish discourse routines, math journals, self-checking, and error analysis with rich number/riddle tasks; preview arrays and equal groups.

Grade Level: 3

Subject Area: Mathematics (Community, Problem Solving, Early OA/NBT)

Total Unit Duration: 5 sessions (one week), 45–60 minutes per session

I. Introduction

Launch the math year by building shared norms for talking about math, organizing math journals, and using self-checking strategies. Students tackle short, engaging number riddles and explore equal groups/arrays to preview multiplication while reinforcing place-value language.

Essential Questions

• How do we explain our thinking and listen to others in math?
• What does it mean to check if an answer is reasonable?
• How do equal groups and arrays help us see multiplication?

II. Objectives and Standards

Learning Objectives — Students will be able to:

1. Follow and contribute to math discourse routines (turn-and-talk, agree/disagree with reasons).
2. Use math journals to show representations (drawings, arrays, number lines) and written explanations.
3. Solve number/riddle tasks and self-check using estimation, inverse thinking, or another strategy.
4. Describe and build equal groups/arrays; connect repeated addition to early multiplication ideas.
5. Use precise place-value language (hundreds, tens, ones) when reading and composing numbers.

Standards Alignment — CCSS Grade 3 (light academic launch)

• 3.OA.1 (light intro): Interpret products of whole numbers as equal groups (e.g., 4 × 6 as 4 groups of 6).
• 3.NBT.1 (place-value/rounding language): Use place value understanding to reason about tens/hundreds (build language now; rounding in later units).
• Mathematical Practices (MP.1–MP.8) threaded: Make sense & persevere, reason abstractly/quantitatively, construct arguments, model, use tools, attend to precision, look for structure/regularity.

Success Criteria — Student Language

• I can explain my strategy and listen for others’ ideas.
• I can show my work with arrays/diagrams and check if it makes sense.
• I can use place-value words (hundreds/tens/ones) to describe numbers.