Worksheet Grade 3 English Language Arts
The Hydrants on Larkmoss Lane: A Grade 3 Worksheet
A grade 3 reading worksheet about the fire hydrants on one fictional street, with text-evidence items, a word-meaning item, and a short writing item.
Objectives
- Students will answer questions about a passage using details the passage states.
- Students will use nearby words to figure out what a new word means.
- Students will write two informative sentences that explain a job step from the passage.
Vocabulary
- 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.
- Valve
- A valve is a device in a pipe that operators can open or close to control where water flows. Valves let crews shut off one street for repairs without turning off the whole town.
Also: hydrant, flushing, grit
Teacher overview
Larkmoss Lane is a fictional street in an invented town, and the passage follows the six fire hydrants along it from an ordinary day through a fire and through the spring flushing that keeps them working. The details are stated plainly so students can locate and quote them, and the color-coded tops give the class one item where two facts have to be combined. Third graders often think a hydrant holds its own tank of water, so item 2 is worth talking through after the worksheet is collected.
Student Worksheet
The Hydrants on Larkmoss Lane
Larkmoss Lane is a street in the town of Draywell. Six fire hydrants stand along it. A hydrant is a short, thick pipe that pokes up out of the ground. Under the street runs a much bigger pipe. That bigger pipe is called a water main. Every hydrant on the street is joined to it.
Most days a hydrant just stands there. It holds no tank of its own. All of its water waits in the main under the street.
When a fire starts, a firefighter hooks a hose to a hydrant. She turns a nut on top with a long wrench. A valve deep below the ground opens. Water rushes up out of the main and into the hose.
The town paints the top of each hydrant. In Draywell, a red top means the hydrant gives the least water. A yellow top means more. A green top means the most. A firefighter can look down the street and pick the best hydrant fast.
Every spring, a crew opens each hydrant for a few minutes. This is called flushing. Rust and grit settle in the main all winter. Flushing pushes that grit out of the pipe. The water looks brown when it first comes out. After a minute it runs clear.
Mr. Okonjo drives the flushing truck. He hangs a paper tag on each hydrant he has flushed. If a hydrant leaks, he writes the address on the tag and hands it to the town office.
Answer each question. Use the passage.
- What street do these six hydrants stand on?
- Where does a hydrant's water wait before a fire?
- What does a firefighter turn with a long wrench?
- What opens deep below the ground?
- In the town of Draywell, what does a green top mean?
- What is flushing?
- Why does the water look brown when a crew first opens a hydrant in spring? Use two details from the passage.
- What does the word "settle" mean in this passage? Write the nearby words that helped you decide.
- A firefighter runs down Larkmoss Lane and sees a red hydrant and a green hydrant. Which one should she pick? Tell how you know.
- Write two sentences that tell a new crew member what Mr. Okonjo does after he flushes a hydrant. Use details from the passage.
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: Larkmoss Lane, in the town of Draywell. The first sentence names the street.
- Answer: In the water main under the street. The passage says a hydrant holds no tank of its own.
- Answer: A nut on top of the hydrant. The third paragraph states this.
- Answer: A valve. The passage says a valve deep below the ground opens and water rushes up into the hose.
- Answer: That the hydrant gives the most water. The fourth paragraph gives the three colors.
- Answer: Opening each hydrant for a few minutes every spring to push grit out of the pipe.
The fifth paragraph names and explains it. - Answer: Because rust and grit settle in the main all winter, and flushing pushes that grit out with the water. Both details come from the fifth paragraph.
- Answer: To sink down and stay in one place. Helpful nearby words are "rust and grit," "all winter," and "pushes that grit out," which show the grit had been sitting in the pipe.
- Answer: The green one, because a green top means that hydrant gives the most water and a red top means it gives the least.
- Answer: Answers will vary. Accept any two sentences drawn from the last paragraph, such as that he hangs a paper tag on every hydrant he flushes, and that he writes the address on the tag and hands it to the town office when a hydrant leaks.
Differentiation
Support
Read the passage aloud once before students work, and give these students a copy with the six paragraph topics written in the margin: the street, an ordinary day, a fire, the colors, flushing, the tags. Let them answer items 7 and 9 out loud to a partner who writes the answer down, and give them one of the two sentences for item 10 as a model.
Extension
Ask students to write the sentence the passage would need if the town changed its colors so that blue meant the most water, and to explain in one sentence which other sentence in the passage would then be wrong.
ELL supports
Pre-teach "hydrant," "pipe," "valve," and "tag" with a sketch of a street cut open to show the main below it, and bring in a luggage tag or a shipping tag so students can hold one. Provide sentence frames for items 7 and 9: "The water looks brown because ___," and "She should pick the ___ hydrant because ___."
Extensions
Students can walk the block outside the school with an adult and count the hydrants they pass, then write one sentence naming where each one stands. Comparing counts the next morning gives the class a reason to be exact about location words such as "corner," "beside," and "across from."