Worksheet Grade 4 Math

Sable Creek's Puddle Watch: Decimal Depths After a Storm

A grade 4 worksheet where a fictional after-school club measures schoolyard puddle depths in tenths of an inch, writing decimals and subtracting to compare locations.

Grade: Grade 4
Subject: Math
Material: Worksheet
Time: 30 min
Prep: No prep
Materials: None

Standards

4.NF.C.6 Common Core Math

Use decimal notation for fractions with denominators 10 or 100. For example, rewrite 0.62 as 62/100; describe a length as 0.62 meters; locate 0.62 on a number line diagram.

How this material aligns: Items 1, 2, and 6 through 8 require students to write tenths-of-an-inch puddle measurements as decimals and locate them relative to whole numbers, exactly the decimal notation for fractions with denominator 10 this standard covers.

All materials for 4.NF.C.6 →

4.MD.A.2 Common Core Math

Use the four operations to solve word problems involving distances, intervals of time, liquid volumes, masses of objects, and money, including problems involving simple fractions or decimals, and problems that require expressing measurements given in a larger unit in terms of a smaller unit.

How this material aligns: Items 4 and 6 through 8 use subtraction of tenths-of-an-inch measurements to solve multistep word problems about changing puddle depths, the decimal measurement word-problem work this standard specifies.

All materials for 4.MD.A.2 →

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This material is in the public domain (CC0) and may be copied, edited, and shared freely, without attribution. Updated 2026-07-16.

Objectives

Students will write measurements given in tenths of an inch as decimals.
Students will use subtraction of decimals to solve word problems about changing puddle depths.

Vocabulary

Evaporation: Evaporation happens when liquid water, often warmed by the sun, turns into an invisible gas called water vapor that rises into the air. It is how water leaves oceans, lakes, and puddles.
Infiltration: Infiltration is when rain or melted snow soaks down into the soil instead of flowing away across the top of it. Water that infiltrates can feed plant roots or keep sinking to become groundwater.

Also: decimal, tenth

Teacher overview

The after-school Puddle Watch club at the fictional Sable Creek Elementary measures how deep puddles get at four spots on the schoolyard after a storm, using a small ruler marked in tenths of an inch: the blacktop, a garden bed, a sidewalk crack, and the grass field. This worksheet has students write those measurements as decimals, order them, and use subtraction to compare depths and track how they change as water evaporates or soaks into the ground.

Sable Creek's Puddle Watch: Decimal Depths After a Storm — Grade 4 Math

Name: ____________________________ Date: ______________

Student Worksheet

The blacktop puddle is seven tenths of an inch deep. Write this as a decimal.
The garden bed puddle is two tenths of an inch deep. Write this as a decimal.
The four depths are: blacktop 0.7 in, garden bed 0.2 in, sidewalk crack 0.5 in, grass field 0.3 in. Put them in order from least to greatest.
Find the difference between the deepest puddle (blacktop) and the shallowest puddle (garden bed).
Look at a number line from 0 to 1, marked in tenths. Is the sidewalk crack's depth (0.5 in) closer to 0, closer to 1, or right in the middle? Explain how you know.
The next day, each puddle loses one tenth of an inch (0.1 in) of water. What is the garden bed's new depth?
What is the blacktop's new depth after the same one-tenth-of-an-inch drop?
Compare the two new depths from items 6 and 7. What is the difference between them?
In a real schoolyard, a puddle on soil like the garden bed usually shrinks faster than a puddle on blacktop. Why? Write one or two sentences.

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: 0.7 inch.
Seven tenths written as a decimal is 0.7.
Answer: 0.2 inch.
Two tenths written as a decimal is 0.2.
Answer: 0.2, 0.3, 0.5, 0.7.
Comparing the tenths digit in each decimal (2, 3, 5, 7) gives the order from least to greatest: garden bed, grass field, sidewalk crack, blacktop.
Answer: 0.5 inch.
0.7 − 0.2 = 0.5 inch.
Answer: Exactly in the middle.
0.5 is halfway between 0 and 1 on a number line marked in tenths, five tenths in from each end, so it is not closer to either side.
Answer: 0.1 inch.
0.2 − 0.1 = 0.1 inch.
Answer: 0.6 inch.
0.7 − 0.1 = 0.6 inch.
Answer: 0.5 inch.
0.6 − 0.1 = 0.5 inch. The gap between the two puddles stayed the same as in item 4, because both puddles lost the same one-tenth-of-an-inch amount.
Answer: Soil absorbs water faster than pavement.
Accept any reasonable explanation noting that the garden bed's soil lets water soak into the ground (infiltration) in addition to evaporating, while the blacktop is paved and does not let water soak through, so it can only lose depth through evaporation.

Differentiation

Support (below grade level)

Provide a printed number line from 0 to 1 marked in tenths for students to use with every item, and allow them to shade or mark each decimal on the number line before comparing or subtracting.

Extension (above grade level)

Ask students to predict how many days it would take the blacktop puddle (starting at 0.7 inch) to reach 0.0 inch if it kept losing exactly one tenth of an inch each day, and to explain their reasoning using addition or subtraction of tenths.

ELL supports

Pre-teach "tenth," "evaporate," and "soak in" using a simple picture of a puddle shrinking over two days, with the decimal depth labeled under each picture. Provide a sentence frame for item 9: "The garden bed dries faster because water can ___ into the soil, but the blacktop only loses water by ___."