Lesson plan Grade 3 English Language Arts
Ashfen's Recharge Basin: A Grade 3 Short Research Lesson
A grade 3 short research lesson in which students gather facts from three short sources about a fictional town's wells and build one shared fact card.
Objectives
- Students will gather facts from three short sources to answer one research question.
- Students will name which source gives each fact they record.
- Students will write four facts about the Ashfen wells on a fact card in their own words.
Vocabulary
Key words: well, soak, sand, basin, source
Teacher overview
Ashfen is a fictional town that pumps its drinking water from wells sunk into a bed of sand and gravel. When summer runs dry, the water in that bed drops and the wells pull harder, so the town built a shallow basin where creek water can soak back down. This lesson gives students three short sources and one question to answer from them, which is a manageable size for a first research project. A common third-grade idea is that well water sits in an underground lake or river, and the sources are written to show that the water fills the spaces between grains of sand instead.
Procedure
Hook (5 min): Pour a cup of water slowly into a clear jar of dry sand while students watch. Ask where the water went, since the jar holds no visible pool. Establish that water fills the gaps between the grains, then write the research question on chart paper: "Where does Ashfen's well water come from, and how does the town keep the wells from running low?"
Modeling the method (10 min): Hand out the source cards. Read Source A aloud, then think aloud as you pull one fact from it and write it on chart paper in your own words, followed by the letter A in a circle. Say plainly that naming the source is part of the work, not an extra step. Take one more fact from Source A with the class before releasing pairs.
Research (20 min): Pairs read all three sources and answer questions 1 through 6 on the handout. Each answer names the source card that gave it. Circulate and ask any pair that has copied a sentence word for word to say the same fact out loud in different words, then write that version.
Fact card writing (10 min): Each student writes four facts about the Ashfen wells on an index card, in their own words, with the source letter after each fact. The four facts together must answer the research question on the chart paper.
Share and check (5 min): Collect the index cards and read three aloud without names. Ask the class to say which of the four facts on each card answers the second half of the research question. Any card with fewer than three sourced facts goes into a small-group revision pile for the next writing block.
Student Handout
Source A: A page from the Ashfen town website
The town of Ashfen has no river running through it. Ashfen gets all of its drinking water from six wells. A well is a deep hole with a pipe in it. The pipe reaches down into a thick bed of sand and gravel. Water fills the tiny spaces between the grains of sand. Pumps lift that water up to the town.
Source B: Notes from a talk with Mr. Delacroix, who checks the wells
"People ask me if there is a lake down there. There is not. The water sits in the sand, the way milk sits in a sponge. In a wet spring the sand holds plenty. In a dry August the water level drops, and my pumps work harder to lift it. I measure the level in each well on Monday morning and write it in a book."
Source C: The sign at the Ashfen recharge basin
This wide, flat, sandy field is a recharge basin. In spring, the town brings water here from Bracken Creek and lets it spread out. The water soaks down through the sand. It refills the spaces the pumps emptied last summer. Please stay on the gravel path.
Answer each question. Name the source card you used.
- Where does the town of Ashfen get all of its drinking water?
- What does a well pipe reach down into?
- Mr. Delacroix says there is no lake under the town. Where does the water sit instead?
- What happens to the water level in the wells in a dry August?
- What is a recharge basin, and where does its water come from?
- Two sources tell you something about dry summers. Which two are they, and what does each one say?
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: From six wells. Source A states that Ashfen has no river and takes all of its drinking water from six wells.
- Answer: A thick bed of sand and gravel. Source A says the pipe reaches down into that bed.
- Answer: In the sand, in the tiny spaces between the grains. Source B compares it to milk in a sponge, and Source A says water fills the spaces between grains.
- Answer: It drops, and the pumps work harder to lift it. Source B says this.
- Answer: A wide, flat, sandy field where the town spreads water so it soaks down. Source C says the water comes from Bracken Creek in spring.
- Answer: Sources B and C. Source B says the water level drops in a dry August, and Source C says the basin refills the spaces the pumps emptied last summer.
Differentiation
Support
Give these students a copy with one fact already highlighted in each source and a fact card that has the source letters A, B, and C preprinted at the start of three of the four lines. Let them answer questions 3 and 6 out loud to a partner who records the answer.
Extension
Ask students to write one question the three sources do not answer, then say which kind of source would answer it, such as another sign, another interview, or a town map. This starts the habit of noticing gaps in a source set.
ELL supports
Pre-teach "well," "soak," "sand," and "basin" with the sand-and-water jar from the hook still on the table, and let students point to the jar while they answer. Provide sentence frames: "Ashfen gets its water from ___," and "Source ___ says that ___."
Extensions
Students can turn their four sourced facts into a short poster for the basin's gravel path, telling a visitor in four sentences what the field is for. Comparing posters shows how two writers can pick different facts from the same three sources and still answer the question.