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    South Carolina 3rd Grade Curriculum & Standards Guide

    How South Carolina's third grade standards line up with Third Grade.

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    South Carolina standards

    Math

    2025 South Carolina College- and Career-Ready Mathematics Standards

    State's own standards · adopted 2023

    Approved December 12, 2023, with corrective edits posted July 2026. Grade 3 uses South Carolina's own strands and codes, such as 3.NR.2.1, and adds coin values with a decimal point, numbers to 999,999, angle types and simple probability. Several national Grade 3 topics, such as area formulas and multiplying by multiples of 10, are Grade 4 here.

    Official standards

    English Language Arts

    2024 South Carolina College- and Career-Ready ELA Standards

    State's own standards · adopted 2023

    Approved January 17, 2023 (amended August 2025). Codes look like ELA.3.AOR.5.1. Cursive is a Grade 3 standard in its own right (ELA.3.C.6.1), and Grade 3 has no phonics or spelling indicators, so Third Grade's weekly word study goes beyond the state list.

    Official standards

    Science

    South Carolina College- and Career-Ready Science Standards 2021

    Based on the national science framework · adopted 2021

    Approved June 14, 2021, and informed by the Framework and the national science standards. All 15 Grade 3 expectations use the national codes, such as 3-LS4-1, a few with reworded statements. There are no separate Grades 3-5 engineering design expectations; design is built into expectations such as 3-PS2-4 and 3-ESS3-1.

    Official standards

    Social Studies

    2019 South Carolina Social Studies College- and Career-Ready Standards

    State's own standards

    K-3 standards approved May 14, 2019. Grade 3 is 'World Geography': maps and hemispheres, environment and resources, natural hazards, culture and economy, and exploration and migration, with codes such as 3.1.2.AG. The 2019 standards apply in 2026-27; a draft revision has been posted for public review.

    Official standards

    Standard-by-standard crosswalk

    See every national third grade standard matched to South Carolina's own codes.

    • Math: 3 same · 19 close · 11 partly · 4 not in Grade 3
    • English Language Arts: 16 same · 43 close · 15 partly · 16 not in Grade 3
    • Science: 11 same · 4 close · 0 partly · 3 not in Grade 3
    Open the South Carolina crosswalk

    Grade 3 differences

    1. In South Carolina

      Social studies: Grade 3 is world geography: use an alphanumeric grid to locate continents and oceans and use latitude and longitude to find the four hemispheres (3.1.1.AG, 3.1.2.AG).

      Suggested swap in Third Grade

      Social Studies Week 3 (maps and globes): add continents, oceans and the four hemispheres, using a grid map and the equator and prime meridian.

    2. In South Carolina

      Social studies: identify natural hazards such as earthquakes, floods, hurricanes and wildfires, find patterns in where disasters happen around the world, and develop a community safety plan (3.3.1.ER, 3.3.2.ER, 3.3.3.AG).

      Suggested swap in Third Grade

      Science Week 21 (severe weather): add earthquakes and wildfires, mark on a world map where each hazard is common, and write a safety plan for your community.

    3. In South Carolina

      Social studies: explain why people have explored and migrated across Earth and trace exploration and migration routes on maps (3.5.1.HS, 3.5.2.AG, 3.5.3.HS, 3.5.4.AG).

      Suggested swap in Third Grade

      Social Studies Week 7 (explorers and settlers) and Week 16 (immigration): trace two explorers' routes and two migration routes on a world map.

    4. In South Carolina

      Math: find the value of a collection of pennies, nickels, dimes and quarters up to $5 and write it in dollars and cents with a decimal point (3.MGSR.2.1). Bills come in Grade 4 (4.MGSR.2.1). Common Core places money in Grade 2 and decimals in Grade 4.

      Suggested swap in Third Grade

      Math Week 32 (flex week): count mixed coins up to $5 and write amounts such as $3.45.

    5. In South Carolina

      Math: read, write and compare whole numbers up to 999,999 (3.NR.1.1, 3.NR.1.3), and name right, acute, obtuse and straight angles, points, lines, rays, and parallel and perpendicular lines (3.MGSR.3.1, 3.MGSR.3.2).

      Suggested swap in Third Grade

      Math Week 1 (place value and rounding): extend reading, writing and comparing to six-digit numbers. Math Weeks 33-34 (polygons; quadrilaterals): name the angle types and find parallel and perpendicular sides in each shape.

    6. In South Carolina

      Math: identify the possible outcomes of a simple event (3.DPSR.2.1). Common Core does not teach probability until Grade 7.

      Suggested swap in Third Grade

      Math Week 35 (scaled picture and bar graphs): add a day of spinner and coin-flip experiments listing all possible outcomes.

    7. In South Carolina

      ELA: write all uppercase and lowercase letters in cursive (ELA.3.C.6.1).

      Suggested swap in Third Grade

      ELA Weeks 1-36 (weekly word study): add 10 minutes of cursive practice two or three days a week until your child can write every uppercase and lowercase letter.

    8. In South Carolina

      Math: South Carolina places several national Grade 3 topics in Grade 4: multiplying by multiples of 10 (4.PAFR.1.2), two-step problems with all four operations (4.PAFR.3.4), area formulas for rectangles (4.MGSR.1.2), measuring to the quarter inch (4.MGSR.2.3), grams and kilograms (4.MGSR.2.4) and elapsed time in minutes (4.MGSR.2.2).

      Suggested swap in Third Grade

      Math Weeks 15, 16, 24, 25, 26 and 28-29 (two-step problems; multiplying by multiples of 10; measuring to the quarter inch; time; mass and liquid volume; area): teach these as written. They go past South Carolina's Grade 3 list, so treat them as a head start on Grade 4 and do not worry if they are not mastered this year.

    Grade 3 public-school test

    SC READY (South Carolina College- and Career-Ready Assessments), Grade 3 ELA and mathematics

    Grades 3-8 take ELA and math; science is tested in Grades 4 and 6.

    About this test

    Shown for context. Homeschool testing rules are separate; see below.

    Homeschool rules

    Check your state's current homeschool rules with its education department. South Carolina homeschool page

    Sources

    Verified 2026-10-08