Worksheet

Sugar Weather: Reading with a Purpose

Grade 4 fluency practice: set a purpose, read an original story about making maple syrup, and answer questions that check understanding.

Grade 4ELAInteractive · Printable

Aligned toRF.4.4.a

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What’s included

Single worksheet
Auto-graded online
1 Common Core standard
Printable answer key
10 questions
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Details

Format: Interactive · Printable
Grade: Grade 4
Subject: ELA
Question types: Fill in the blank, Multiple choice, Circle the answer, Sorting, Short answer

About this worksheet

What students practice

Students set a purpose before reading a grade 4 story.
Students read a grade-level story and answer questions that check their understanding.
Students decide which questions a text answers and which it does not.

How to use

Have students choose a purpose before reading, read the story silently or aloud to a partner, then answer the questions and look back at the numbered paragraphs.

Curriculum

Common Core standard covered

RF.4.4.a

Read grade-level text with purpose and understanding.

Preview

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Name Date

Sugar Weather: Reading with a Purpose

Set a purpose, read a story about making maple syrup, and check your understanding.

Set a purpose and read

A purpose is your reason for reading. Answer question 1 to choose a purpose. Then read the story and keep that purpose in mind.

Read the title of the story and paragraph 1. What is the best purpose for reading this story?

A. to learn the rules of a sledding race in the snow
B. to find out how Mei helps make maple syrup
C. to find out how to cook pancakes in a pan
D. to learn how to build a cabin out of logs

Sugar Weather

1Every March, Mei spent a week with her grandfather in the hills where he lived. Grandpa Lu had a small sugarhouse at the edge of his woods. This year, Mei was finally old enough to help him make maple syrup.

2On the first morning, frost covered the windows, and Mei could see her breath on the porch. By lunchtime, though, the sun felt warm, and water dripped from the icicles on the roof. Grandpa smiled at the sky. "This is sugar weather," he said. "Freezing nights and warm days make the sap run inside the maple trees."

3After lunch, they tramped through the slushy snow to visit the trees. Earlier that week, Grandpa had drilled a small hole in each sugar maple and tapped in a metal spout. A bucket with a lid hung from every spout, and Mei could hear the sap going plink, plink, plink as it dripped inside.

4Mei lifted one lid and peeked in. The bucket was half full of sap that looked as clear as water. "It doesn't look like syrup at all," she said. Grandpa laughed. "Taste it," he said. Mei dipped in a finger. The sap tasted like water with only a hint of sweetness.

5Together, they emptied the buckets into big containers on a sled and pulled the sap back to the sugarhouse. Inside, Grandpa lit a fire under a long, flat metal pan and poured in the sap. Soon, clouds of sweet-smelling steam rose from the pan and drifted out through an opening in the roof. "That steam is water leaving the sap," Grandpa explained. "We have to boil away most of the water to make syrup."

6The boiling took all afternoon. Mei added wood to the fire while Grandpa stirred the sap and watched it closely. Little by little, the sap turned from clear to golden, and it grew thicker. Mei frowned at the pan. "We started with so many buckets, and now there's only a little left," she said. "That's why maple syrup is special," Grandpa said. "It takes a lot of sap to make a small amount of syrup."

7At last, Grandpa dipped a thermometer into the pan and nodded. The syrup was ready. He poured it through a filter into glass jars, and the jars glowed in the evening light. That night, Mei and Grandpa ate pancakes with warm maple syrup. Mei thought it was the best syrup she had ever tasted, because she had helped make it herself.

Check your understanding

Answer each question. Look back at the story when you need to.

In paragraph 2, Grandpa says, "This is sugar weather." What does sugar weather mean?

A. sunny days after all of the snow has melted
B. rainy days when it is too wet to work outside
C. snowy days when the maple trees are fast asleep
D. freezing nights and warm days that make sap run

Read paragraph 4 again. Underline the sentence that tells how the sap tasted.

Mei lifted one lid and peeked in.The bucket was half full of sap that looked as clear as water."It doesn't look like syrup at all," she said.Grandpa laughed."Taste it," he said.Mei dipped in a finger.The sap tasted like water with only a hint of sweetness.

Write the word from paragraph 7 that names the tool Grandpa uses to check that the syrup is ready.

Grandpa checks the syrup with a .

Why is only a little syrup left in the pan at the end of the afternoon?

A. Mei and Grandpa drank some of the sap along the way.
B. Some of the sap spilled off the sled into the snow.
C. Most of the water in the sap boiled away as steam.
D. Grandpa saved most of the sap to boil another day.

Who did each thing in the story? Sort the actions.

tasted the sap with one fingerdrilled a small hole in each maplepoured the syrup through a filterlifted a bucket lid and peeked inadded wood to the firelit a fire under the flat pan

Mei	Grandpa

Write 1, 2, 3 or 4 to put the steps of making syrup in the order they happened.

The sap boils in a long, flat pan.
Grandpa drills holes in the maples and taps in spouts.
Grandpa pours the syrup into glass jars.
Mei and Grandpa collect the sap from the buckets.

Check your purpose

Think about what the story helped you learn.

Good readers check which of their questions a text answers. Sort the questions.

How many buckets did Grandpa hang?What kind of weather makes sap run?What does sap taste like before it is boiled?Why does each bucket have a lid?What did Mei and Grandpa eat with the syrup?How long has Grandpa owned the sugarhouse?