In the Saxon 3rd grade Math 3 curriculum, social studies and science connections are stressed more than in the earlier grades. In addition, other skills learned and practiced include identifying ordinal position to twentieth; mastering all basic facts of addition, subtraction, multiplication, and division; adding and subtracting multi-digit numbers; multiplying a multi-digit number by a single-digit number; dividing by single-digit divisors; adding positive and negative numbers; telling time to the minute; determining elapsed time; making change for a dollar; graphing ordered pairs on a coordinate graph, and many others.
In Saxon Math 3, just as in K-2, each day begins with a “meeting” where students perform mental math and skip counting warm-ups and the like. Afterwards, the teacher will read from the scripted lesson, teaching the child today’s new concept and practicing it with manipulative exercises where designated. Finally, 3rd grade workbook pages are assigned.
The Saxon Math 3 approach to the 3rd grade math curriculum, like all Saxon products is “incremental”, that is, Saxon teaches any given concept by breaking it down into very small pieces, or “increments” that are taught one by one, gradually building on what’s been taught before. This is combined with daily, cumulative spiral review, where students work over and over again the same types of problems they have seen before. This ensures that the concepts become completely familiar to the students.