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Reading passage Kindergarten Health & Consumer Science

The Day the Water Went Off at Fernbank School

A kindergarten read-aloud story about a school morning with no running water, the wipes and jugs that kept hands clean, and the crew who fixed the broken pipe.

Objectives

  1. Students will retell what happened at Fernbank School in the order it happened.
  2. Students will name two things the class used to stay clean with no running water.
  3. Students will describe one thing people built so homes would have clean water.

Vocabulary

Key words: pipe, tank, crew, wipe, jug

Teacher overview

A school day without running water is unfamiliar to most children, and this passage builds on that. It follows one school morning from the dry tap through the wipes and water jugs to the repair crew and the running tap at the end, which gives the class a plain picture of where school water comes from and who keeps it coming.

Assign it before or after a lesson on handwashing, since the story makes the point that clean hands still matter when the sink is empty. Read it aloud twice, once straight through and once with pauses, and hold question 6 until the second reading so children have the order in mind.

The Day the Water Went Off at Fernbank School — Kindergarten Health & Consumer Science
Name: ____________________________ Date: ______________

Passage

Fernbank School has a sink in each room. It has a tall fountain by the gym. Cold water comes out when you push the round button.

One day the water went off. Mrs. Pell turned the tap. No water came out. Not one drop. The class got very still.

A pipe under the street had cracked. Water ran out into the mud. The town shut the water off so the pipe could be fixed.

Mrs. Pell got a big box from the office. In the box were jugs of water. In the box were wipes. Each child got a wipe for clean hands. Each child got a cup of water from a jug. The class had snack with clean hands.

Long ago, people in Fernbank dug up the street. They laid pipes down in the dirt. They built a tall tank up on the hill. Then each home had clean water to drink.

Now a crew keeps those pipes safe. A crew came with a big truck. They dug up the street. They put in a new pipe. They filled the hole back up.

At last the water came back on. Mrs. Pell turned the tap. Cold water ran out. The class gave a cheer.

Questions

  1. What went wrong at Fernbank School that day?
  2. What did Mrs. Pell hand out to the class?
  3. Why was there no water in the taps?
  4. Long ago, what did people in Fernbank build on the hill?
  5. How do you think the class felt when the water came back?
  6. Draw the story in order. Tell your teacher what went on.

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 went off.
    The passage says Mrs. Pell turned the tap and no water came out, not one drop.
  2. Answer: Wipes and cups of water.
    The story describes a big box from the office holding jugs of water and wipes, with each child getting one wipe and one cup.
  3. Answer: A pipe under the street had cracked.
    The passage explains that the cracked pipe let water run into the mud, so the town shut the water off so the pipe could be fixed.
  4. Answer: A tall tank on the hill.
    The paragraph about long ago says people dug up the street, laid pipes in the dirt, and built a tall tank on the hill so every home had clean water. Accept "pipes" as part of the answer.
  5. Answer: Glad or happy.
    Answers will vary. The passage says the class gave a cheer, and children may also mention that the water was cold, that they had waited a long time, or that they were thirsty.
  6. Answer: A drawing showing the events in order.
    A complete drawing shows the dry tap first, the box of wipes and water in the middle, and the crew or the working tap at the end. Listen for order words while the child talks, and scribe what they say beside the picture.

Differentiation

Support

Give the child three picture cards showing the dry tap, the box, and the repair truck, and let them lay the cards in order before drawing anything. Answer questions 1 through 4 by pointing at the matching card. Reread only the paragraph a question comes from rather than the whole passage.

Extension

Ask the child to add a fourth picture to their sequence showing something that happened that the story does not tell, such as what the crew did with the cracked pipe, and to explain why they think so. Invite them to write the caption for one picture without help.

ELL supports

Pre-teach pipe, tank, crew, wipe, and jug by showing the object or a photograph and saying the word twice. Read the passage a third time with a finger tracing a simple drawing of the tank, the street pipe, and the school. Accept spoken answers in the home language for questions 1 through 5 and add one English word together during scribing.

Extensions

Ask your custodian or a town water worker to visit and tell the class about a real repair, including how they find a leak under a street, which is worth asking about while the visitor is in the room. Set up a no-tap snack drill in which the class washes with wipes and pours from a jug, then talk about what was harder than usual.