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Worksheet Grade 3 English Language Arts

Drip Lines at Yarrowmere Farm: A Grade 3 Reading Worksheet

A grade 3 reading worksheet about a strawberry farm that traded sprinklers for drip lines, with text-evidence, word-meaning, and apply-the-idea items.

Objectives

  1. Students will answer questions about an informational passage using details stated in the text.
  2. Students will use nearby words to figure out what a new word means in a passage.
  3. Students will apply a reason from the passage to a farm the passage does not describe.

Vocabulary

Key words: drip line, sprinkler, roots, clog, weeds

Teacher overview

Yarrowmere Farm is a fictional strawberry farm that used to water its rows with a sprinkler and now uses drip lines, which are hoses that leak water slowly right next to the plants. The passage explains why the farm switched and what still goes wrong with the new system, giving students a text where the reasons are stated plainly enough to be located and quoted. Third graders often assume that every drop a sprinkler throws lands on the crop, so items 3 and 10 are worth discussing aloud after the worksheet is collected.

Drip Lines at Yarrowmere Farm: A Grade 3 Reading Worksheet — Grade 3 English Language Arts
Name: ____________________________ Date: ______________

Student Worksheet

Drip Lines at Yarrowmere Farm

Yarrowmere Farm grows strawberries in long rows. For many years, the farm watered the rows with a sprinkler. The sprinkler threw water high into the air. Some of that water never reached the roots. It dried into the air first. Wind blew some of it onto the dirt path.

Two summers ago, the farm put in drip lines. A drip line is a black hose with tiny holes in it. The hose lies on the ground next to the plants. Water leaks out of the holes, one drop at a time. The drops soak straight down to the roots.

Drip lines help in one more way. Weeds grow where the ground is wet. A sprinkler wets the whole field, so weeds come up everywhere. A drip line wets only a narrow strip of dirt. Now the farm pulls fewer weeds.

Drip lines are not perfect. The tiny holes can clog with grit. Ms. Yates walks the rows each week and looks for a dry plant. A dry plant means a hole is blocked. She cleans the hose or puts in a new piece.

Answer each question. Use the passage.

  1. What does Yarrowmere Farm grow?
  2. What did the farm use to water the rows before it put in drip lines?
  3. The passage says some of the sprinkler water dried into the air. Explain what that means in your own words.
  4. What is a drip line? Write your answer using the passage.
  5. Where does the water go after it leaks out of the holes?
  6. Why does the farm pull fewer weeds now? Use two details from the passage.
  7. What does the word "clog" mean in the last part of the passage? Write the nearby words that helped you decide.
  8. What does Ms. Yates do each week?
  9. Ms. Yates sees one dry plant in a row. What does that tell her? Tell why.
  10. A farm down the road grows corn in wide fields and waters with a sprinkler. Use the passage to explain one reason that farm might want drip lines.

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: Strawberries. The first sentence says the farm grows strawberries in long rows.
  2. Answer: A sprinkler. The first paragraph says the farm watered the rows with a sprinkler for many years.
  3. Answer: The water dried up and floated away into the air before it could soak in. Accept any wording that means the water left as vapor instead of reaching the roots.
  4. Answer: A black hose with tiny holes that lies on the ground next to the plants. The passage defines it in the second paragraph.
  5. Answer: Straight down to the roots. The passage says the drops soak down to the roots.
  6. Answer: Because weeds grow where the ground is wet, and a drip line wets only a narrow strip instead of the whole field. Both details come from the third paragraph.
  7. Answer: To get blocked or plugged up. Nearby helpful words are "grit," "a dry plant," and "a hole is blocked," which show that water stops coming out.
  8. Answer: She walks the rows and looks for a dry plant. The last paragraph states this.
  9. Answer: That a hole near that plant is blocked. The passage says a dry plant means a hole is blocked, so she cleans the hose or puts in a new piece.
  10. Answer: Answers will vary. Accept any reason drawn from the passage, such as less water drying into the air, more water reaching the roots, or fewer weeds because only a narrow strip of ground gets wet.

Differentiation

Support

Read the passage aloud once before students work, and give these students a copy with the four paragraph topics written in the margin: old way, new way, weeds, problems. Let them answer items 3, 6, and 10 out loud to a partner who writes the answer down.

Extension

Ask students to write two sentences the farm could add to the passage explaining what Ms. Yates should do if a whole row goes dry rather than one plant, and to mark which part of the existing passage made them think so.

ELL supports

Pre-teach "sprinkler," "hose," "roots," and "weeds" with pictures or with a real length of hose and a watering can. Provide sentence frames for items 3, 6, and 9: "It means that ___," "The farm pulls fewer weeds because ___," and "It tells her that ___."

Extensions

Students can compare this passage with a short text about watering a houseplant and list two things that are the same about giving water slowly. A class chart of "where the water goes" for both cases makes the shared idea visible without adding new vocabulary.