Reading passage Kindergarten Health & Consumer Science

Where Milo's Sweat Goes: A Kindergarten Water Read-Aloud

A kindergarten read-aloud passage following a boy from a hot recess run to his water bottle, connecting drying sweat with a puddle drying in the sun.

Grade: Kindergarten
Subject: Health & Consumer Science
Material: Reading passage
Time: 25 min
Prep: No prep
Materials: drawing paper and crayons for question 6, a cup of water for the wet-hand demonstration

Standards

W.K.2 Common Core ELA

Use a combination of drawing, dictating, and writing to compose informative/explanatory texts in which they name what they are writing about and supply some information about the topic.

How this material aligns: Question 6 has each child draw and dictate one true thing about water and the body, naming the topic and supplying information about it as this standard describes.

All materials for W.K.2 →

Download Word file

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 name what sweat is and what it does for the body.
Students will describe where the water in sweat and in a puddle goes.
Students will draw and dictate one true statement about water and the body.

Vocabulary

Key words: sweat, cool, dry, thirsty, gulp

Teacher overview

This passage names sweat, follows the water out of the body and into the air, and puts a drying puddle beside it so children have a familiar picture to hold the idea to. The health point comes at the end, where Milo drinks because his body has less water than it had before he ran.

The teaching note is to read this on a warm day, right after outdoor time, while children are still warm from running. Pause after the paragraph where Milo's skin gets dry, put a drop of water on the back of each child's hand, and ask them to blow on it, which gives them the cooling feeling in their own skin as the story describes it. The word evaporation is not used with the class here, though it belongs in your notes as the name for what the passage describes.

Where Milo's Sweat Goes: A Kindergarten Water Read-Aloud — Kindergarten Health & Consumer Science

Name: ____________________________ Date: ______________

Passage

Milo runs at recess. He runs to the fence. He runs back to the wall. He runs and runs. Soon Milo feels hot.

Small drops come out on Milo's skin. The drops are called sweat. Sweat helps Milo cool off.

The air is warm and dry. The air takes the drops away. Milo's skin gets dry again. Milo feels cool. But now his body has less water than it had.

A puddle dries up the same way. The sun and the air take the water up. The puddle gets small. Then the puddle is gone. The water went up into the air.

Milo's body needs that water back. He walks to his bag. He gets his blue bottle. He takes three big gulps.

Ms. Dey tells the class a rule. Drink some water before you run. Drink some water when you rest. Drink some water when you are done.

Milo puts his bottle back. His face is pink. His legs feel good. He runs one more lap.

Questions

What comes out on Milo's skin when he gets hot?
What does sweat do for Milo?
Where do the drops go when Milo's skin gets dry?
What makes a puddle get small and go away?
Why does Milo drink from his bottle?
Draw one true thing about water and your body. Tell your teacher about it.

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: Sweat.
The passage says small drops come out on Milo's skin and that the drops are called sweat.
Answer: It helps him cool off.
The story states this directly right after naming sweat.
Answer: Into the air.
The passage says the warm, dry air takes the drops away and Milo's skin gets dry again.
Answer: The sun and the air take the water up.
The puddle paragraph says the sun and the air take the water up until the puddle is gone and the water has gone into the air. Accept "the sun dries it" as a complete answer.
Answer: Because his body has less water than it had.
Answers will vary in wording. The passage says his body has less water after he sweats and that his body needs that water back, so drinking replaces it.
Answer: A drawing with one true statement about water and the body.
Accept any accurate idea the child can name, such as sweat coming out when you run, water going into the air, drinking after you play, or a bottle in a bag. Scribe the child's exact words beside the drawing.

Differentiation

Support

Read only the first three paragraphs, then ask questions 1 through 3 before continuing. Offer a two-picture choice for each of those questions, such as a drawing of drops on skin beside a drawing of rain, and let the child point. For question 6, give a pre-drawn water bottle to complete and caption by dictation.

Extension

Ask the child to explain what the sweat and the puddle have in common, in one or two sentences, which is the comparison the passage sets up without stating it. Invite them to write their own question about sweat for the class to answer, and to write the question 6 caption without help.

ELL supports

Pre-teach sweat, cool, dry, and gulp with gestures the whole class performs together: a hand wiping the forehead, a fanning motion, palms rubbing dry, and a swallow. Do the blow-on-your-hand demonstration with the child before the reading rather than during it. Accept spoken answers in the home language and add one English word together while scribing.

Extensions

Set two saucers of water on the windowsill, one in the sun and one in the shade, and check them after lunch and again the next morning so the class can see which dried first. Keep a class water bottle chart for one week and compare a cool rainy day with a hot day, then ask what the class notices about the days they drank most.