Question 1 of 16 · Reading
Story details, characters, and message · Curriculum connections: RL.3.1, RL.3.2, RL.3.3, RL.3.4
The Crooked Sign — original fictional story
Original classroom material; people, sources and data are fictional.
Maya wanted the sign for the class garden to look perfect. She painted each letter slowly: BEANS, PEAS, AND PLEASE BE KIND. But when she lifted the board, a drop of blue paint rolled across the last word. Maya set the sign behind a bucket. “We can finish it tomorrow,” she told her partner Luis.
Luis looked at the clouds. The class picnic was that afternoon. He offered to paint a small leaf over the blue spot. Maya shook her head. Then wind scattered the paper labels from their seed trays. Luis caught two labels, and Maya caught three. They put the labels back together by reading the planting notes. Alone, neither could have sorted all five.
Maya glanced at the hidden board. “Could your leaf have a stem?” she asked. Luis grinned. He painted a leaf, and Maya added a stem that curled around the last letter. They carried the sign outside. It leaned a little in the soft soil. Maya pressed the soil firmly around it instead of starting over. At the picnic, she pointed to the leaf. “That is the part we made together.”