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Worksheet Grade 3 English Language Arts

The Pump That Pushes Water Up Toppins Hill in Crayford

A grade 3 reading worksheet about a fictional booster pump that lifts town water to houses on a hilltop, with text-evidence and apply-the-idea items.

Objectives

  1. Students will answer questions using details the passage states.
  2. Students will explain why a hilltop house needs a pump.
  3. Students will apply the passage rule to a new house on the same hill.

Vocabulary

Pump
A pump is a machine that adds energy to water to move it or push it uphill, doing the job gravity cannot do on its own. Water systems use many different kinds of pumps to move water from wells, through treatment, and out to customers.

Also: gravity, booster station, generator, operator

Teacher overview

Crayford is a fictional town whose water tank sits low, so the houses on its one steep hill are fed by a small pump in a brick building at the bottom of the slope. The passage states the reason for the pump, the reason for the backup generator, and the weekly check the operator makes, in that order. Many third graders believe that a pipe can carry water anywhere it is pointed, so they may picture water climbing to any height on its own once it is inside a pipe. Items 3 and 11 are written to catch that idea, and both reward a second reading of the third paragraph.

The Pump That Pushes Water Up Toppins Hill in Crayford — Grade 3 English Language Arts
Name: ____________________________ Date: ______________

Student Worksheet

The Pump That Pushes Water Up Toppins Hill

The town of Crayford sits in a low, flat spot by a river. The town water tank stands on that flat ground. Water leaves the tank and runs into the pipes under the streets.

Going downhill, the water needs no help. Gravity pulls it along. Most of Crayford is downhill from the tank, so most of the town gets water that way with no pump.

Toppins Hill is the problem. Fourteen houses sit near the top of it, higher than the tank. Water will not climb higher than the water in the tank on its own. Gravity pulls the wrong way there.

So the town built a small brick building at the foot of the hill. Inside that building is a pump. The pump pushes water up the slope to the fourteen houses. Workers call the little building a booster station.

When a storm cuts the power, the pump stops. Downtown still has water, because gravity keeps working. The houses at the top of Toppins Hill are the first to run dry. That is why the booster station has a generator in the back room.

Ms. Pinchbeck runs the pump for the town. She drives up every Wednesday and stands beside it. She listens. A pump that is about to break often sounds different first. She writes down what she hears in a log book.

Last winter the pump ran all night and never shut off. Ms. Pinchbeck knew that was wrong. A crew looked uphill and found a cracked pipe under a driveway. The pump had been working hard to fill a leak.

Answer each question. Use the passage.

  1. Where does the town water tank stand?
  2. What pulls the water through the pipes when the ground goes downhill?
  3. Why will water not reach the top of Toppins Hill on its own?
  4. What did the town build at the foot of the hill?
  5. What is inside that brick building?
  6. What do workers call the little building?
  7. What happens to the pump when a storm cuts the power?
  8. Why does the booster station have a generator?
  9. What does Ms. Pinchbeck do at the pump every Wednesday?
  10. Last winter the pump ran all night. What did the crew find?
  11. A new house will be built even higher up Toppins Hill, above the other fourteen. Use the passage to explain what the town may need to do for that house.

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: On the flat, low ground by the river, in the town of Crayford. The first paragraph states this.
  2. Answer: Gravity. The second paragraph says gravity pulls the water along.
  3. Answer: Because the houses sit higher than the tank, and water will not climb higher than the water in the tank on its own. Both details come from the third paragraph.
  4. Answer: A small brick building at the foot of the hill. The fourth paragraph states this.
  5. Answer: A pump. The fourth paragraph states this.
  6. Answer: A booster station. The fourth paragraph gives the name workers use.
  7. Answer: It stops. The fifth paragraph states this.
  8. Answer: Because the houses at the top of the hill are the first to run dry when the pump stops, so the generator keeps the pump going. The fifth paragraph states this.
  9. Answer: She stands beside the pump and listens to it, then writes what she hears in a log book. The sixth paragraph states this.
  10. Answer: A cracked pipe under a driveway uphill. The last paragraph states this, and explains that the pump had been working hard to fill a leak.
  11. Answer: Answers will vary. Accept any answer built on the passage, such as running a pipe up from the booster station, making the pump push harder or adding a second pump, since the passage says water will not climb higher than the tank on its own and the pump is what lifts it.

Differentiation

Support

Read the passage aloud once before students work. Give these students a copy with a side-view sketch in the margin showing the tank low, the hill high, and the small building at the bottom with an arrow pointing up the slope. Let them answer items 8 and 11 out loud to a partner who writes the answer down.

Extension

Ask students to write the three sentences Ms. Pinchbeck would put in her log book on the night the pump would not shut off, using only what the passage says she noticed and what the crew later found. Their sentences must stay in the order the events happened.

ELL supports

Pre-teach "gravity," "pump," "booster station," and "generator" by pouring water down a slanted tray and then asking a student to blow through a straw to move a drop back up the slope. Provide sentence frames for items 3 and 8: "Water cannot reach the top because ___," and "The station has a generator so that ___." Allow labeled drawings in place of written answers for items 4 and 5.

Extensions

Students can find the highest and lowest points of the school building and predict which drinking fountain would stop first if a pump failed, then write two sentences explaining their prediction. Comparing predictions with the custodian's answer gives the class a real check on the reasoning the passage teaches.