Unit 1
First Day Jitters
1. Why did Sarah wants to stay in bed?
2. How would you describe Mr. Hartwell?
3. How would you describe Sarah's principal?
4. What happens last in this story?
5. Why is the ending of "First Day Jitters" surprising?
6. Who is Mr. Hartwell?
7. Describe Sarah using evidence from the text.
8. Be able to fill out a Somebody Wanted But So chart.
9. What are the meanings of these prefixes: un-, re-, pre10. Know the definitions of the vocabulary words.
Amazing Grace
1. If Grace's teacher said they would do Peter Pan. What is the effect?
2. Why did Raj say that Grace couldn't play Peter Pan?
3. Why did Natalie say Grace couldn't play Peter Pan?
4. How did the teacher decide who should get the part of Peter Pan?
5. Where did Nana take Grace on Saturday?
6. What lesson did Nana want Grace to learn?
7. Know the definitions of the vocabulary words.
8. How did Grace prepare for the Peter Pan audition. Be able to provide evidence from the text.
9. Be able to fill out a Somebody Wanted But So chart.
Earth Smart
1. What is the main idea to these details: Goodwille is a green school, Soalr panels use the sun's power,
Its walls and floors are made with recycled materials?
2. What are milk jugs and sawdust used for at Goodwillie Environmental School?
3. How are green schools heated in the winter?
4. How do chickens help the Goodwillie students make money for environmental projects?
5. How do the chickens help the school garden at Goodwillie?
6. What is the section call :The Great Outdoors"mostly about?
7. What main goal do green schools want to teach students?
8. Know the vocabulary definitions.
9. At the Goodwillie School, what lessons do students learn through farming and raising chickens. Use
evidence from the text to support your answer.
Wolf!
1. How is the wolf in this story different from a wolf in real life?
2. How are the duck, the pig, and the cow different from other animals in this story?
3. What does the wolf do just after the animals tell him to leave?
4. How are the duck, the pig, and the cow alike?
5. Why do the farm animals ask the wolf to go on a picnic?
6. What word best describes the wolf?
7. Know the vocabulary definitions
8. Know the meaning of these words: to, two, and too.
9. Know the meaning of the prefix dis-.
10. How can the reader tell that the farm animals like the wolf at the end of the story? Use evidence from
the text to support your answer.
My Very Own Room
1. Why does the girl sit in a tree in the beginning of the story?
2. Why doesn't the girl's mother want her to use the storage closet at first?
3. What does the family have to do before Tio Pancho brings the bed?
4. What items are placed in the girl's new room?
5. Why will the girl probably enjoy reading to her youngest brothers more in the future?
6. How can the reader tell that the family in this story cares for one another?
7. Know the definitions of the vocabulary words.
8. If the girl in the story needed a new dress for a special event, what will the family most likely do? Use
eveidence from the text to support your answer.
Unit 2
3rd Grade Unit 2 Test Questions Studyguide
Boom Town
1. What is next in this sequence? Pa goes to the gold field, then Amanda starts selling pies, then what?
2. Why does Amanda's family move to California?
3. What happens the first time Amanda makes a pie for her new home?
4. Why doesn't Ma have time to help Amanda bake pies at first?
5. What happens just before Mr. Hopper agrees to help build sidewalks for the new town?
6. Why is the town a boom town?
7. Define the vocabulary words.
8. Tell in order, how the town got a school and a church. Support your answer with text evidence.
Home Grown Butterflies
1. Be able to name details that support this main idea: Students start a butterfly farm.
2. Why was the butterfly farm in Costa Rica created?
3. Why do the students need to watch out for chickens?
4. What do the zoos buy from the butterfly farms?
5. What will the students in Costa Rica most likely do when they grow up?
6. Compare and contrast the Costa Rica butterfly farm and the California one.
7. Define the vocabulary words.
8. How have the students in Costa Rica helped their community. Use text evidence to support your
answer.
Go West!
1. What is Go West! mostly about?
2. How did the completion of the first transcontinental railroad help people?
3. Why did the railroads want people to settle in the West?
4. What is the name of the city that became a camp for railway workers?
5. Why did many people in the late 1800’s travel to the Southwest?
6. Many railroad lines to the West were built by workers from what country?
7. How did the railroads help mining industries grow in the Southwest?
8. What is an antonym?
9. What is a synonym?
10. How did railroads help farmers and ranchers in the southwest?
11. Compare and contrast the story Boom Town with Go West!
12. Define all vocabulary words.
Here’s My Dollar
1. Why did Angel write a letter?
2. Why did Angel send her letter to The Fresno Bee?
3. What word best describes Angel?
4. Why did the author write this article?
5. How did Angel show that she was daring?
6. Why did Angel appear on a television show?
7. Why does the author say in the article that a hero is four feet two inches tall?
8. How did Angel spread the word about her campaign to raise money for the zoo?
9. Define all vocabulary words.
10. What is an antonym? Give an example.
11. What is a synonym? Give an example.
A Castle on Viola Street
1. Where is Andy when he sees the flier about the meeting to own a home?
2. Why does Andy's dad tell him that sometimes new things are hard to get used to and people are slow
to change?
3. Why does Andy's family sign up to help fix houses for other people?
4. What does the Tran family do just after they move into their new house?
5. What is the main theme of this story?
6. What kind of person is Andy?
7. What is the result of Andy's family's hard work?
8. Why is this story called, "A Castle on Viola Street"? Expalin and support your answer.
9. Define all vocabulary words.
Unit 3
3.1 Author: A True Story
1. What is the main top of this article?
2. What did Helen Lester do as a child?
3. What was Helen Lester's first job?
4. Why did Helen Lester write her 7th book?
5. What was the author's purpose for writing the article?
6. What word best describes Helen Lester?
7. Where does Helen Lester keep her unfinished ideas?
8. How does Helen Lester feel about being a writer? Explain and Support.
9. Define vocabulary words.
3.2 Dear Juno
1. Why does Juno watch planes?
2. What does Juno find in the letter from his grandmother?
3. How does Juno figure out what his grandmother's letters say?
4. What does Juno decide to do after he takes his granmother's letters to school?
5. What does Juno know when he finds the toy plane in his granmother's letter?
6. Why does Juno draw pictures instead of writing a letter to his grandmother?
7. What things will Grandma recognize when she comes to visit? Expalin and support.
8. Define vocabulary words.
3.3 Message Mania
1. What do some people think messaging can be a great tool for?
2. Why do some words get shortned and new slang invented in Instant Messaging by IM users?
3. According to the article, how often do many kids IM each other?
4. What does spending too much time on the computer take away from according to parents adn
teachers?
5. According to researchers, why do parents worry about thier kids being on the internet?
6. Why do some people think that IMing can make kids better students?
7. Why is it best only to write things in an IM that you would say to a friend in person? Expalin and
support.
8. Define vocabulary words.
3.4 What do Illustrators Do?
1. What is the first thing an illustrator does when working on a book?
2. How does noe of the illustrators make her story of Jack and the Beanstalk different?
3. How does one illustrator show how fast the beanstalk grows?
4. What does the illustrator use the mirror for?
5. When do the editor and designer make suggestions?
6. When do illustrators usually work on the cover of the book?
7. Define vocabulary words.
8. What is the difference between an illustrator and an illustrator who is an author? Use the text to
support your answer.
3.5 The Jones Family Express
1. What has the narrator always wanted to do?
2. What does Aunt Carolyn send to the narrator?
3. Why does the narrator want to get a present for Aunt Carolyn?
4. Where does the narrator find the perfect present for Aunt Carolyn?
5. What does the narrator give Aunt Carolyn?
6. How does Aunt Carolyn give the narrator the best present of all?
7. What made Sean more special than everyone else at the block party? Explain and support.
8. Define vocabulary words.
Unit 4 Third Grade Test Questions
4.1 Seven Spools of Thread
1. What does the father want his sons to do before they have their inheritance?
2. What happens last in the story?
3. What is the main hteme in this story?
4. Why is the cloth made by the seven brothers unusual?
5. How do the brothrers make gold from silk threads?
6. How do the seven brothers change in this story?
7. How do the seven brothers help the other villagers? Explain and support.
8. Define vocabulary words.
4.2 Nacho and Lolita
1. What does Nacho think of everything when he first arrives in San Juan Capistrano?
2. Why does Nacho carry a branch with him for the long trip over the ocean?
3. Why do Lolita and her chicks have to leave the Mission San Juan Capistrano?
4. Wy does Nacho pluck all his beautiful colored feathers?
5. What does Lolita think of Nacho when he no longer is colorful?
6. How do the swallows find their way back to Capistrano in the spring?
7. Why is Nacho worried that when the swallows return, Lolita won't like him anymore?
8. What is the main theme or message in this story? Explain and support.
9. Define vocablary words.
4.3 A Growing Interest
1. What may kids from big cities like Houston not know according to this article?
2. How does Urban Harvest help people?
3. What kind of people work for Urban Harvest?
4. What do kids and teacehrs at the Cedarbrook Elementary School do in July?
5. How can a community garden help a neighborhood?
6. What can students learn from helping with a community garden?
7. How do kids at Egene Field Elementary in Tulsa, Oklahoma , who work on the school garden learn
writing skills?
8. How do school gardens help people in Houston eat better food? Explain and support.
9. Define vocabulary words.
4.4 Romona and Her Father
1. What is the one item that Ramona leaves on her Christmas list?
2. Why did Mr. Quimby lose his job?
3. Why can't Mr. Qimbly take Ramona to the park anymore?
4. What is the solution to the family's problems that Ramona comes up with at the end of the story?
5. What would Ramona like to do with a million dollars?
6. At the beginning of the story, how can Beezus tell that something is wrong?
7. In what ways does Ramona think she might be able to earn some money for the family? Explain and
support.
8. Define vocabulary words.
4.5 Out of this World!
1. What did Ellen Ochoa plan to be when she first went to college?
2. What is one unique thing about Ellen Ochoa?
3. What are the different shapes the moon seems to take called?
4. What does Ellen Ochoa find odd about weightlessness?
5. Who was the first American astronaut to orbit Earth?
6. Why in the early years of the space program were there no women astronauts?
7. According to Ellen Ochoa, what skills or traits are most im portant for an astronaut? Explain and
support.
8. Define vocabulary words.
Unit 5 Test Questions
5.1 Penguin Chick
1. What is the main idea of the story?
2. Why don't penguins in Antartica build nests?
3. After a penguin mother lays an egg, what does she do?
4.What happens last when a chick hatches?
5. What happens when the mother returns after her chick hatches?
6.What can a junior penguin do?
7.What problem do emperor penguins face during their time in Antartica?
8. Define vocabulary.
5.2 Animal Homes
1. Why do honeybees use honeycombs?
2. Why are beavers so busy?
3. How is a beaver lodge different from the way it appears?
4. What do hermit crabs do?
5. What does the cowbird do?
6. Which animal carries its home on its back?
7. Which animal builds its own home?
8. Define vocabulary
5.3 Call of the Wild
1. Why do coyotes live in more places now than they did long ago?
2. How does the arctic fox adapt to the Arctic winter?
3. How did finches from South America adapt to the Galapagos?
4. Why have some wild turkeys moved to the suburbs?
5. Why doesn't the loggerhead turtle migrate south anymore?
6. What do scientists think animals adapting to changes in the environments helps them do?
7. Why have both javelinas and black bears moved to neighborhoods?
8. Define vocabulary.
5.4 Wilbur's Boast
1. Where does this story take place?
2. Why doesn't Wilbur need to spin a web to catch his food?
3. How does Charlotte compare herself to the men on the Queensborough Bridge?
4. What animal is Templeton?
5. What does Charlotte do after the lamb tells Wilbur that he smells?
6. What does Charlotte use her web mainly to do?
7. Define vocabulary
5.5 Unique Animals of the South West
1. What is a similarity between Rattlesnakes and Scorpions?
2. What does a roadrunner use it's long tail for?
3. Where do armadillos live?
4. Why do rattlesnakes shake their rattles?
5. Where is a scorpion's stinger?
6. What do chuckwallas and gila monsters have in common?
7. What kind of animal is a tarantula?
8. Define vocabulary
Unit 6 Third Grade Test Questions
6.1 Stone Soup
1. What are the people doing when the monks arrive at the village?
2. What does the little gril help the monks find?
3. What do the villages add to the soup?
4. What happens to the soup as each person adds more to the pot?
5. What do the villages do when the soup is ready?
6. Why do the monks show the billages how to make stone soup? Explain and support
7. Define the vocabulary words.
6.2 The Stongest One
1. Who are the characters in this play?
2. Why does the Little Red Ant want to find out who the strongest one is?
3. Why is Wind stronger than Sun?
4. Who is stronger than Big Rock?
5. Summarize the story Little Red Ant.
6. How is Little Red Ant like a person?
7. Who is stronger than Fire?
8. What does Little Red Ant learn from his trip outside? Explain and support.
9. Define the vocabulary words.
6.3 Tales of the Trickster
1. Why did people first make up trickster tales?
2. What is a trickster in most stories?
3. How are oral stories different from written stories?
4. Who are Robert Greygrass and Rose Red Elk?
5. What country does the trickster tale The Ungrateful Tiger come from?
6. What are some trickster stories from American fold traditions used for?
7. Does a trickster always trick other characters? Explain and support.
8. Define the vocabulary words.
6.4 Cook-a-Doodle-Doo!
1. What word best describes Rooster?
2. Why does Rooster decide to bake a strawberry shortcake?
3. What cuases the strawberry shortcake to fall?
4. What does Iguana offer to do after they beat an egg?
5. Why is the second strawberry shortcake easier to make?
6. Why does Iguagna get upset with Pig?
7. How would this story be different if Rooster had made the strawbeery shortcake alone? Explain and
support.
8. Define vocabulary words.
6.5 One Riddle, One Answer
1. What is the main problem at the beginning of this story?
2. How does Aziza choose whom to marry?
3. Which character thinks that a sword is the correct answer?
4. How does Aziza feel when no one has the correct answer?
5. What is the answer to Aziza's riddle?
6. Why is Ahmed a good match for Azia?
7. Why did Aziza leave the palace in a caravan? Explain and support.
8. Define vocabulary words.