Worksheet Grade 5 English Language Arts

Fact or Opinion in the Sandover Water Newsletter

A grade 5 worksheet in which students sort statements from a fictional water department newsletter into facts and opinions, then write an opinion with reasons.

Grade: Grade 5
Subject: English Language Arts
Material: Worksheet
Time: 35 min
Prep: No prep
Materials: None

Standards

RI.5.1 Common Core ELA

Quote accurately from a text when explaining what the text says explicitly and when drawing inferences from the text.

How this material aligns: Items 9 and 10 ask students to copy newsletter sentences exactly, one that gives a checkable number and one the writer could use to support her recommendation, which is the explicit-evidence half of RI.5.1.

All materials for RI.5.1 →

W.5.1 Common Core ELA

Write opinion pieces on topics or texts, supporting a point of view with reasons and information.

How this material aligns: Item 12 requires an opinion sentence supported by two ordered reasons drawn from the newsletter. It is one short item rather than a full opinion piece, so it practices the reasons-and-information structure of W.5.1 without covering the whole standard.

All materials for W.5.1 →

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This material is in the public domain (CC0) and may be copied, edited, and shared freely, without attribution. Updated 2026-07-23.

Objectives

Students will label statements from an informational text as fact or opinion.
Students will explain how a reader could check whether a stated fact is true.
Students will write an opinion sentence supported by two reasons from the text.

Vocabulary

Key words: fact, opinion, leak, conservation, evidence

Teacher overview

Utility newsletters mix checkable facts with the writer's judgments, which makes them a useful text for teaching fifth graders to tell the two apart in real reading rather than in isolated practice sentences. This worksheet uses a short newsletter from the water department of a fictional town, Sandover, whose spring issue reports leak repairs and then argues for a leak-check program. The closing items move students from sorting to using, asking them to locate sentences that would serve as evidence, say how a stated fact could be checked, and then write an opinion of their own with ordered reasons.

Fact or Opinion in the Sandover Water Newsletter — Grade 5 English Language Arts

Name: ____________________________ Date: ______________

Student Worksheet

From the spring newsletter of the Sandover Water Department

The town of Sandover is not real, but the water department in this story works like many small ones. Read the newsletter. Then answer the questions.

Last winter our crews found and fixed nine leaks in town water mains. We also handed out free leak test kits at the library. A leak test kit shows if a toilet is leaking. Toilets are the sneakiest water wasters in any house. Household leaks waste about 180 gallons a week in the average home. A faucet that drips once a second can waste more than 3,000 gallons a year, according to the EPA. Every family in Sandover should test for leaks this spring. Our office is open on Tuesday evenings until seven. Fixing leaks is the easiest way to save water in this town.

Write fact or opinion for each sentence.

"Last winter our crews found and fixed nine leaks in town water mains."
"Toilets are the sneakiest water wasters in any house."
"Household leaks waste about 180 gallons a week in the average home."
"A faucet that drips once a second can waste more than 3,000 gallons a year, according to the EPA."
"Every family in Sandover should test for leaks this spring."
"Our office is open on Tuesday evenings until seven."
"Fixing leaks is the easiest way to save water in this town."
"We also handed out free leak test kits at the library."

Answer the questions below in complete sentences.

Copy the exact sentence from the newsletter that gives a number a reader could check about dripping faucets.
The writer thinks every family should test for leaks. Copy one sentence from the newsletter that the writer could use as a reason for that opinion.
Pick one sentence you marked as a fact. Tell one way a reader could check whether it is true.
Write your own opinion sentence about leak test kits in Sandover. Then give two reasons from the newsletter that support your opinion. Put your strongest reason last.

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: Fact. The crews either fixed nine leaks or they did not, and the department's repair records would show it.
Answer: Opinion. "Sneakiest" is a judgment rather than something a reader could measure, and two readers could disagree about which fixture deserves the word.
Answer: Fact. It reports a measured average that a reader could look up, and it matches the figure published by the EPA WaterSense program.
Answer: Fact. The amount a steady drip wastes over a year can be measured, and this figure matches the EPA WaterSense estimate for a faucet dripping once per second. The exact total depends on how big each drip is, which is why the sentence says "more than."
Answer: Opinion. The word "should" tells the reader the writer is recommending an action rather than reporting something that happened.
Answer: Fact. Anyone could call or visit the office on a Tuesday evening to check it.
Answer: Opinion. "Easiest" compares leak repair to other ways of saving water, and the newsletter gives no measurement of how easy each one is.
Answer: Fact. Handing out kits at the library is an event that happened or did not happen.
Answer: "A faucet that drips once a second can waste more than 3,000 gallons a year, according to the EPA." Accept the sentence only if it is copied exactly.
Answer: Either "Household leaks waste about 180 gallons a week in the average home." or "A faucet that drips once a second can waste more than 3,000 gallons a year, according to the EPA." Both give a reader a reason to test for leaks. Accept the sentence about the nine repaired mains if the student explains that it shows leaks are common in town.
Answer: Accept any workable check that matches the sentence chosen, such as asking the water department for its repair records, calling the office on a Tuesday evening, visiting the library, or looking up the published leak estimate from the EPA WaterSense program.
Answer: Accept any opinion sentence about the kits that is followed by two reasons taken from the newsletter and ordered with the stronger reason last, for example: The Sandover Water Department should keep handing out leak test kits, because a leak test kit shows if a toilet is leaking, and because household leaks waste about 180 gallons a week in the average home. Responses with only one reason, or with reasons invented outside the newsletter, do not meet the task.

Differentiation

Support

Give these students only items 1 through 6 and 9, with the word bank "fact" and "opinion" printed beside each item. Provide a two-column chart headed "I can check this" and "Someone could disagree," and let them sort the sentences from items 1 through 6 into the chart before writing.

Extension

Ask students to rewrite two of the opinion sentences so that each becomes a checkable fact, then explain in one sentence what a reader would have to measure to test each rewritten sentence.

ELL supports

Pre-teach "leak," "waste," "crew," and "kit" with pictures, and post a sentence frame for item 12: "I think the water department should ___. One reason is ___. A stronger reason is ___." Allow students to mark items 1 through 8 with the letters F and O rather than writing the full words.