NCERT Books for Class 3 — All Subjects, Free PDFs

At a glance

Quick answer. NCERT publishes 4 official textbooks for Class III (Class 3) in the 2025-26 academic year: Veena (Hindi), Santoor (English), Math Mela (Mathematics), and Our Wondrous World (EVS). All NCF-SE 2024-25 aligned, replacing legacy Marigold / Rimjhim / Math Magic / Looking Around editions. Standard admission age is 8 years. EVS is introduced as a fourth subject at this stage — the first major curricular jump in Indian primary schooling. No formal exam at Class 3.

Class 3 introduces Environmental Studies (EVS) for the first time as a standalone subject — a significant curricular jump from Classes 1–2. The 2024-25 NCF-SE-aligned books are Veena (Hindi), Santoor (English), Math Mela (Mathematics, replacing the older Math Magic III), and Our Wondrous World (EVS, replacing Looking Around III). Together they form the four-subject Class 3 NCERT syllabus.

Mathematics at Class 3 introduces multiplication tables (2 to 10), three-digit arithmetic, fractions as parts of a whole, and basic geometry (lines, shapes). EVS is intentionally activity-based — children learn about food, water, plants, animals, family, and community through observation and simple experiments rather than memorisation. The new Math Mela books are visibly more illustration-heavy than their predecessors and align closely with NEP 2020 pedagogy.

Class 3 is the first year where most CBSE schools conduct formal written assessments, though no board examination exists. Parents at this stage often start using NCERT as the primary syllabus and pulling supplementary worksheets only for revision. All four books are free PDFs on ncert.nic.in, hot-linked below.

Class 3 — first major curricular jump

Class 3 is the first major curricular jump in Indian primary schooling — Environmental Studies (EVS) is introduced as a fourth subject for the first time. NCERT publishes four official textbooks for Class 3 in 2025-26: Veena (Hindi), Santoor (English), Math Mela (Mathematics), and Our Wondrous World (EVS) — all under NCF-SE 2024-25, replacing the older Marigold III / Rimjhim III / Math Magic III / Looking Around III editions.

EVS at Class 3 is intentionally activity-based — not a 'science textbook' in the Class 9-10 sense. Children learn about food, water, plants, animals, family, community, and basic ecology through observation and storytelling. Reinforcement at home through outdoor walks, simple experiments, and parent-child conversations matters more than worksheet completion.

Class 3 has no formal exam — CBSE explicitly de-emphasises graded testing at primary level. Most CBSE schools introduce unit-test-style assessments at Class 3 as preparation for the more substantive Class 4-5 assessment cadence — but these are internal, not board-mandated.

Find a Class 3 school near you

GetSchoolsInfo's primary database covers 64,000+ Indian K-12 schools sourced from UDISE+ 2024-25. The cards below jump to city / metro search results filtered for CBSE-board schools (most of which follow NCERT for Class 3).

Three ways students and parents use this page

As a study reference. Bookmark it on your phone, share the URL with your child or study group, and refer back during the academic year. The page structure is intentionally stable — same hierarchy, same sources, same labels — so revisiting it weeks later doesn't require re-orienting yourself.

As a verification anchor. When a coaching brochure or third-party education site claims something about NCERT — what's in / what's out / what's coming — cross-check it here. Every claim on this page links back to the official NCERT, CBSE, or NTA source. If a third-party claim contradicts what's here, follow our source link first; we cite the canonical document.

As a navigation hub. Each page links up (to the parent class hub or NCERT root) and across (to adjacent chapters, subjects, or related deletion pages). The hierarchy is designed to support depth-first browsing — start broad, drill down, and pop back up. Use the breadcrumbs at the top of every page to navigate the hierarchy without losing context.

If you're a teacher or counsellor, this page is also designed to print cleanly to a single PDF — no popups, no distracting ads, no required logins.

Beyond NCERT — other free Government of India learning resources

NCERT is the canonical syllabus, but it isn't the only free educational resource the Indian government publishes. Each of the platforms below complements NCERT for a specific use case.

ePathshala (epathshala.nic.in) is the Ministry of Education's digital reader for NCERT books. It hosts the same PDFs as ncert.nic.in but with an enhanced flipbook interface that's easier to read on phones. Use it when you want a screen-friendly reading experience rather than a download. Note: ePathshala does not host any content not also available on ncert.nic.in — both are sourced from the same NCERT-published files.

DIKSHA (diksha.gov.in) is the Ministry of Education's video-and-interactive content platform. It curates chapter-aligned videos (some from NCERT's own YouTube channel, some third-party), interactive quizzes, and 'energised textbook' augmentations — QR codes inside printed NCERT books that link to DIKSHA media. Use DIKSHA when you want video reinforcement of a chapter you've already read; it's not a substitute for the textbook.

Swayam (swayam.gov.in) hosts MOOCs (massive open online courses) from IITs, IIMs, IISc, and other Indian institutions of national importance. Most courses target undergraduates, but some target Class 11-12 with dedicated CBSE-aligned content. Genuinely useful for self-driven Class 11-12 students; the certificates are NPTEL/UGC-recognised.

Swayam Prabha (swayamprabha.gov.in) is a 32-channel DTH education broadcast that runs 24×7. Schedules align with the academic year. Useful for students in low-connectivity areas where streaming video is unreliable.

NCERT Official YouTube (youtube.com/@NCERTOFFICIAL) hosts chapter-aligned video lessons authored by NCERT-empanelled teachers. Free, embeddable, and authoritative — these are the videos we curate on our chapter pages where available.

Editorial policy and how this page is maintained

Every NCERT-related page on GetSchoolsInfo is built from the same editorial policy, summarised here for transparency:

Source-of-truth. All chapter PDFs and rationalisation booklets are hot-linked directly to ncert.nic.in — the official Government of India publisher of NCERT content. We do not host PDFs on our own CDN, we do not redirect through ads, and we do not wrap NCERT links behind a registration wall. If NCERT issues a corrected or updated PDF, the link auto-refreshes from NCERT's CDN — you always get the latest version.

No commercial upsell. We do not sell or promote commercial guidebooks (RD Sharma, Lakhmir Singh, Together with..., Educart, Oswaal, Arihant). For CBSE board preparation, NCERT textbooks plus NCERT Exemplar Problems are sufficient; commercial books are supplementary at best. For JEE / NEET / CUET preparation, coaching modules add problem volume but are not a replacement for NCERT mastery.

Update cadence. Class-level and subject-level pages are reviewed annually before the academic year start (March-April). Chapter-level PDF link health is checked monthly via automated cron. The dateModified field at the bottom of every page reflects the most recent content edit; the inside cover of each NCERT PDF carries the print-edition year.

Verification. Every factual claim on this page can be cross-checked against the official NCERT rationalisation booklet (BookletClass{N}.pdf on ncert.nic.in), the latest CBSE Sample Paper PDF (cbseacademic.nic.in), or the relevant NTA bulletin (NEET/JEE/CUET 2026 syllabus documents). Disagreements between NCERT and NTA are explicitly flagged via our deleted-syllabus reconciliation pages — we do not paper over the gap.

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