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Worksheet Grade 3 Math

Silverpine Creek Gauges: A Grade 3 Scaled Bar Graph Worksheet

A grade 3 worksheet where students read and draw a scaled bar graph of liters caught at four creek gauges in a fictional watershed, then compare the bars.

Objectives

  1. Students will read a scaled bar graph where each square stands for ten liters.
  2. Students will solve one- and two-step how-many-more problems from graph data.

Vocabulary

Watershed
A watershed is all the land where rain that falls will drain to the same stream, river, or lake. Everyone lives in a watershed, no matter how far from the water they live.

Also: scaled bar graph, creek, scale

Teacher overview

Four creeks run through the fictional Silverpine watershed, the land area that drains into one river. A ranger set a catch gauge at each creek and measured how many liters it collected in one hour. This worksheet gives students that data in a scaled bar graph, where each grid square stands for 10 liters rather than 1. Reading a scaled bar for the first time is the exact skill needed later to read a real utility's consumption chart. A common misconception is to count squares as ones, so item 9 is built to surface and correct that error directly.

Silverpine Creek Gauges: A Grade 3 Scaled Bar Graph Worksheet — Grade 3 Math
Name: ____________________________ Date: ______________

Student Worksheet

A ranger checked four creeks that feed Silverpine. Each gauge caught water for one hour. Here is the data. In item 8 you will draw a bar graph where each square stands for 10 liters.

Creek Liters caught
Birch 40
Otter 70
Fox 30
Pine 60
  1. Which creek caught the most liters?
  2. Which creek caught the fewest liters?
  3. How many more liters did Otter catch than Fox?
  4. How many liters did Birch and Pine catch in all?
  5. Each square stands for 10 liters. How many squares long will the Otter bar be?
  6. How many squares long will the Fox bar be?
  7. How many more liters did Otter and Pine catch together than Birch caught alone?
  8. Draw a scaled bar graph of all four creeks. Use a scale of 10 liters for each square.
  9. Pine's bar is 6 squares long. A student says that means 6 liters. Is that right? Tell how you know.
  10. The ranger poured Fox's water and Birch's water into one tank. The tank can hold 100 liters. How many more liters would still fit?

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: Otter. Otter caught 70 liters, the largest value in the table.
  2. Answer: Fox. Fox caught 30 liters, the smallest value in the table.
  3. Answer: 40 liters. 70 − 30 = 40 more liters.
  4. Answer: 100 liters. 40 + 60 = 100 liters in all.
  5. Answer: 7 squares. 70 liters ÷ 10 liters per square = 7 squares.
  6. Answer: 3 squares. 30 liters ÷ 10 liters per square = 3 squares.
  7. Answer: 90 liters. First add Otter and Pine: 70 + 60 = 130 liters. Then subtract Birch: 130 − 40 = 90 liters.
  8. Answer: Bars of 4, 7, 3, and 6 squares. Birch is 4 squares (40), Otter is 7 squares (70), Fox is 3 squares (30), and Pine is 6 squares (60), each square standing for 10 liters.
  9. Answer: No. Each square stands for 10 liters, so a 6-square bar means 6 × 10 = 60 liters, not 6 liters.
  10. Answer: 30 liters. Fox and Birch together are 30 + 40 = 70 liters. The tank holds 100 liters, so 100 − 70 = 30 more liters would fit.

Differentiation

Support

Give students a printed graph grid with the bars already drawn so they read values before they draw. Model item 5 aloud, pointing to each square and counting by tens, then let students count the other bars the same way. Provide a number line to 130 for the two-step item 7.

Extension

Ask students to add a fifth creek to the watershed with a value that is not a multiple of ten, such as 55 liters, and explain how they would show half of a square on the scaled graph. Have them write a new how-many-more question about their graph and answer it.

ELL supports

Pre-teach "creek," "gauge," "watershed," and "scale" with a labeled picture of creeks flowing into one river. Provide a sentence frame for items 1, 2, and 9: "The ___ creek caught the ___ liters because ___." Let students point to bars on the graph while explaining before they write.