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Worksheet Grade 3 English Language Arts

Following the Pipes to Fernbrook Elementary: A Grade 3 Worksheet

A grade 3 reading worksheet in which students trace how water travels from a town water tower to a fictional school and answer text-evidence questions.

Objectives

  1. Students will describe the order water travels from a water tower to a school building.
  2. Students will answer questions about a text by pointing to the sentence that supports each answer.

Vocabulary

Water tower
A water tower is a big tank raised high above town that stores drinking water. Its height is what pushes water through the pipes, keeping the pressure steady even when the power goes out.
Water main
A big underground pipe that carries drinking water beneath the streets to a neighborhood. Smaller service lines branch off it to reach each building.

Also: gravity, operator

Teacher overview

Every drinking fountain at Fernbrook Elementary connects, through a chain of underground pipes, all the way back to the town's water tower. This worksheet gives students a short passage that traces that path, then asks them to answer questions about the order water travels and the vocabulary that names each part of the system. Tracing one drop's route from tower to fountain gives students a concrete text to reread for evidence.

Following the Pipes to Fernbrook Elementary: A Grade 3 Worksheet — Grade 3 English Language Arts
Name: ____________________________ Date: ______________

Student Worksheet

Read the passage. Then answer the questions.

Passage: Clean water is pumped up into the town's water tower. The tower is a tall tank. It stores clean water above the rooftops. Gravity pulls the water down. The water flows into a big pipe. This pipe is a water main. The water main runs under the street. It carries water to every building. Smaller pipes branch off the main. They run underground to homes and schools. One small pipe reaches Fernbrook Elementary. It connects to pipes inside the school. Those pipes carry water to the sinks. They also carry water to the fountains. A worker checks the pipes and the tower. This worker is called an operator. The work keeps water flowing every day.

  1. What is the first stop for water in this passage?
  2. What force pulls the water down?
  3. What is a water main?
  4. Where does the water main run?
  5. What connects the water main to the school?
  6. What is the operator's job?
  7. Put these four things in order: fountain, water tower, water main, smaller pipe.
  8. Why is the water tower tall? Use a clue from the passage.
  9. Write one sentence about how water gets from the tower to a fountain.

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: The water tower. The passage names it first.
  2. Answer: Gravity. The passage states that gravity pulls water down from the tower.
  3. Answer: A large pipe that carries water from the tower under the street. The passage defines it this way.
  4. Answer: Under the street. The passage says the water main runs under the street toward every building.
  5. Answer: A smaller pipe. The passage says one of the smaller pipes connects to the pipes inside the school building.
  6. Answer: Checking the pipes and the water tower to keep water flowing. The passage states this directly.
  7. Answer: Water tower, water main, smaller pipe, fountain. This is the order the passage describes water traveling.
  8. Answer: Answers will vary, but should note that building the tower tall lets gravity pull water down to homes and schools, which the passage explains is what moves the water.
  9. Answer: Answers will vary, but should describe water moving from the tower through the water main, then a smaller pipe, then into the school's pipes to the fountain.

Differentiation

Support

Provide a simple four-box flow chart (Tower, Water Main, Smaller Pipe, Fountain) for students to reference while answering items 1 through 7.

Extension

Ask students to think through, using only the passage, what might happen at Fernbrook Elementary if the water main under the street broke, and explain their answer using a detail from the text.

ELL supports

Pre-teach "water tower," "water main," and "operator" with a labeled diagram before students read. Allow items 1 through 6 to be answered by pointing to or copying the exact sentence from the passage.