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Reading passage Kindergarten Careers & CTE

Dev Watches the Lake That Fills Kettle Hill's Taps

A kindergarten read-aloud about the water crew member who measures a town's lake each morning and reports when it drops, with six questions and a key.

Objectives

  1. Students will explain where the town of Kettle Hill gets its drinking water.
  2. Students will compare the number of rainy days and sunny days in a recorded week.
  3. Students will describe one thing a town asks people to do when its lake is low.

Vocabulary

Cloud
A cloud is a visible mass of tiny water droplets or ice crystals floating in the sky. Clouds form when water vapor cools and condenses onto tiny particles of dust or salt in the air.

Also: lake, mark

Teacher overview

Every town that drinks from a lake or a reservoir has somebody watching how much is in it. This read-aloud invents that worker, Dev, at the invented town of Kettle Hill, and follows one morning of his routine: read the marks on the post, write the number down, look at the sky, and tell the water office when the level starts dropping. The passage links that job to the idea that the water in the tap came from rain and will be rain again, without using the phrase water cycle. Read it aloud in about four minutes.

Dev Watches the Lake That Fills Kettle Hill's Taps — Kindergarten Careers & CTE
Name: ____________________________ Date: ______________

Passage

Read this passage aloud to the class. Pause at each blank line.

Dev works for the water crew in Kettle Hill. The town drinks water from a lake. Dev goes to the lake every morning.

A tall post stands in the water. The post has marks on it. Dev looks to see which mark the water reaches. Then he writes it in his book.

Dev looks at the sky too. Did rain fall last night? Dev writes that down as well. Last week there were 3 days with rain. There were 4 days with sun.

Rain fills the lake. The sun takes some water back up. That water goes up and makes clouds. Then it falls again as rain.

Some weeks very little rain falls. The lake gets low. Dev tells the water office right away. Then the town asks people to use less water. People wait to wash the car. People give the garden less water.

Dev likes his job. He is the first one to know when the lake goes up again.

Questions

  1. Where does the town of Kettle Hill get its water?
  2. What does Dev look at to see how high the lake is?
  3. Last week Dev counted the days. Were there more days with rain or more days with sun?
  4. Rain fills the lake. Tell what takes some of the water back up.
  5. The lake gets low. Tell one thing the town asks people to do.
  6. Tell one reason Dev's job helps the town.

From Water for Schools (waterforschools.org). This material is in the public domain (CC0) and may be copied, edited, and shared freely.

Answer Key
  1. Answer: From a lake. The passage says the town drinks water from a lake that Dev visits every morning.
  2. Answer: The marks on the tall post. The passage says he looks to see which mark the water reaches.
  3. Answer: More days with sun. The passage records 3 rainy days and 4 sunny days, and 4 is more than 3.
  4. Answer: The sun. The passage says the sun takes some water back up, which then makes clouds.
  5. Answer: Wait to wash the car, or give the garden less water. Either one is a complete answer.
  6. Answer: Accept any answer meaning that he warns the town early, such as "He tells them when the lake is low" or "People know to save water." The passage says he tells the water office right away.

Differentiation

Support (below grade level)

Set a clear jar of water on the table with three tape marks on the side, and lower the water with a spoon as you read, so the level is something students watch rather than imagine. Read only the first three paragraphs on the first day. Ask questions 1 and 2, and accept pointing at the jar as an answer.

Extension (above grade level)

Ask these students to say how many days Dev wrote about in all last week and to explain how they worked it out. Then ask what Dev's book would show after a month with no rain, and have them dictate one sentence about what the town might do next.

ELL supports

Pre-teach lake, mark, and low with the jar, a strip of tape, and a hand held near the bottom, repeating each word three times. Point to the jar whenever the passage names the post. Accept one-word answers, gestures, and drawings, and let students answer question 3 by holding up fingers for each group of days.

Extensions

Put a marked jar on the classroom windowsill and give one student the lake watcher job each week, recording the level on a class chart after you add or remove water each morning. If a nearby reservoir, park pond, or utility posts its level publicly, read one week of those numbers aloud and let the class say whether the level went up or down, which is the same call Dev makes.