Worksheet Grade 1 English Language Arts
Bellowmoor Court's Broom or Hose: A Grade 1 Caption Worksheet
Ten grade 1 items on two pictures of the same front walk being cleaned, asking students to write fact captions and tell caption facts from caption opinions.
Objectives
- Students will write a caption that tells what is happening in a picture.
- Students will tell a caption that states a fact from one that states an opinion.
- Students will write one fact about the water a hose uses.
Vocabulary
Key words: caption, hose, broom, fact, closing
Teacher overview
Bellowmoor Court is an invented street where two neighbors clean the same kind of front walk in two different ways on the same Saturday morning. The worksheet describes two pictures in words, one of a hose spraying leaves and grit off a walk and one of a broom sweeping the same mess into a dustpan, and asks students to write captions for them. Caption writing suits a first grader because a caption is one sentence long and has to say what is happening rather than what the writer likes. The misconception these items address is the idea that water sprayed outdoors simply disappears once the walk is clean, so item 6 asks directly where the hose water goes after it leaves the walk.
Student Worksheet
Look at the two pictures your teacher posted, or listen while your teacher describes them.
Picture A. Mr. Cass points a hose at his front walk. Water sprays across the bricks. Leaves and grit wash into the street. The walk is wet.
Picture B. Kim sweeps her front walk with a broom. Leaves and grit go into a dustpan. She dumps the pan in the yard bin. The walk is dry.
- Write a caption for Picture A. Tell what the hose is doing.
- Write a caption for Picture B. Tell what the broom is doing.
- Circle the caption that gives a fact. (a) A hose is more fun than a broom. (b) The hose sprays water on the walk.
- Circle the caption that gives a fact. (a) The broom pushes the leaves into a pile. (b) Brooms are boring.
- Which picture uses no water? Write A or B.
- Write one fact about the water from the hose. Tell where it goes after it leaves the walk.
- A caption tells what is happening. Circle the one that does not. The walk gets clean. / I love Saturdays.
- Write a caption for a third picture: a full dustpan sitting by the yard bin. Tell what is in the pan.
- Write a closing line for your page. Do not add a new fact.
- Name one other job at home where a broom could do the work instead of a hose.
From Water for Schools (waterforschools.org). This material is in the public domain (CC0) and may be copied, edited, and shared freely.
Answer Key
- Answer: Accept any one-sentence caption that tells what is happening, such as "The hose sprays the leaves off the walk." A caption naming a feeling instead of an action should be revised with the writer.
- Answer: Accept any one-sentence caption telling what the broom does, such as "Kim sweeps the leaves into a dustpan."
- Answer: (b) The hose sprays water on the walk. Choice (a) tells what someone likes, so it is an opinion.
- Answer: (a) The broom pushes the leaves into a pile. Choice (b) tells how someone feels about brooms.
- Answer: B. Kim's broom moves the leaves without any water at all.
- Answer: Accept any true sentence about where the hose water goes, such as "It runs into the street" or "It goes down the gutter with the leaves." Naming the storm drain is a strong answer.
- Answer: I love Saturdays. It tells how the writer feels rather than what is happening in the picture.
- Answer: Accept any caption naming what is in the pan, such as "Leaves and grit fill the dustpan." Adding that the pan is going into the yard bin counts as an extra detail.
- Answer: Accept any closing line that ends the page without new information, such as "Both walks got clean." Restating the topic in fresh words also counts as closure.
- Answer: Accept any reasonable job, such as sweeping a porch, a garage floor, a driveway, a deck, or the front steps. A job that truly needs water, such as washing a window, should be talked through with the student.
Differentiation
Support
Read both picture descriptions aloud twice and point to each detail as you read. For items 3, 4, and 7, cover the choice a student has already ruled out. Give these students a caption frame for items 1 and 2, such as "The hose _____." and "The broom _____." Allow a drawing above each caption.
Extension
Ask students to write a second caption for Picture A that tells what happens to the leaves after they reach the street. A further step is to write two captions for a picture of a rainy day on the same walk, one telling what the rain does and one telling what the leaves do.
ELL supports
Pre-teach caption, hose, and broom with the real objects or clear drawings, and say the word caption each time you point at a sentence under a picture. Provide the frames named in Support, and accept short phrases on items 6, 8, and 10. Let students say each caption to a partner before writing it.
Extensions
Sweep a small section of a classroom or hallway floor with a broom and dustpan, then talk about what it would take to clean that same patch with water. Students add one sentence to their page comparing the two.