我的日常生活
Wǒ de rìcháng shēnghuó — My Daily Life
Grade 3 is when Chinese becomes a language students use rather than recite. They narrate a whole day, describe a home, order a meal — and read their first connected paragraphs instead of isolated labels.
By the end of Grade 3…
- Speaking: describe a full day in sequence using time words
- Listening: follow a short spoken story about a familiar topic
- Reading: recognise 180 characters and read a 4–6 sentence paragraph
- Writing: write 100 characters and compose 3–4 original sentences
- Structure: use time-before-verb word order reliably
The word-order rule of the year
English puts time at the end. Chinese puts it near the front, always:
我每天六点起床。
Wǒ měitiān liù diǎn qǐchuáng. — literally “I every-day six-o’clock get-up.” Students who internalise this in Grade 3 stop making the single most common beginner mistake for good.
8 units
我的一天 — My Daily Routine
Wǒ de yìtiān. Getting up, going to school, coming home — in order, with time words.
我的房间 — My House & Rooms
Wǒ de fángjiān. Rooms, furniture, and saying what’s in them.
三餐 — Three Meals a Day
Sān cān. Breakfast, lunch, dinner, and what a Chinese school lunch looks like.
运动和爱好 — Sports & Hobbies
Yùndòng hé àihào. What students do after school, and how often.
天气和季节 — Weather & Seasons
Tiānqì hé jìjié. The four seasons, weather talk, and what to wear.
我的衣服 — Clothes
Wǒ de yīfu. Clothing words, colours revisited, and 穿 vs 戴.
读和写 — Reading & Writing Short Texts
Dú hé xiě. The first real paragraphs — read one, then write your own.
关于我 — All About Me
Guānyú wǒ. A spoken-and-written self-portrait using everything from the year.
Reading is about to get faster
Around 150 characters something clicks: students stop decoding character by character and start recognising two-character words as single units. Expect a visible jump in reading speed somewhere in Unit 5 or 6. Before that, slow reading is not a problem — it’s the runway.
Supporting every learner
If it feels hard: drop the writing requirement for a unit and keep the speaking. Reading and writing can lag by a full unit without hurting anything.
If it feels easy: have your student rewrite the Unit 7 paragraph as a diary entry every week for the rest of the year.