STAAR RLA Grade 4

The community center keeps a seed cabinet by the front desk. In spring, a neighbor can take one envelope of seeds. In fall, that neighbor brings back seeds from the plants that grew. A card on the cabinet says, "Return more than you took."

The cabinet has three drawers. The top drawer is beans. The middle drawer is flowers. The bottom drawer is greens. A paper taped to the bean drawer says, "Keep these dry."

Last April, Maya took an envelope of scarlet runner beans. She planted them along a short garden fence. By July the vines had crossed the walk, and people had to step over them. In September she dried the pods on a window screen. She put 40 seeds in a new envelope. On the envelope she wrote, "Needs a tall fence. The short one let the vines cross the walk."

The clerk taped Maya's note under the old one. Now the bean drawer says, "Keep these dry. Give them a tall fence."

The school play used two bells, and Nico was in charge of both. The first bell meant the actors should walk to the stage. The second bell meant they should freeze, even if a sentence was not finished.

At the dress rehearsal, Nico rang the second bell while an actor was still saying, "The map is in the—" Everyone stopped. The director said, "The freeze is for the end of the scene, not the middle of a word."

Nico wrote three words on a card and set the card on the bell table: "First. Lines. Second." During the show he waited. The actor finished, "The map is in the red box." Then Nico rang the second bell. The actors held still. The audience clapped, and only after the clapping did anyone move.

Luis found a red lunchbox under a bus seat. A tag on the handle said "A. Chen." A sticker on the lid said "peanut-free table." He wanted to open the box to look for a name, but the tag already had one. He carried the lunchbox to the school office.

The secretary, Mr. Alvarez, called grade 4. Amina Chen came down. "I sit at the peanut-free table," she said. "That sticker tells the lunch staff where I eat. It is not a note for other kids." She had left the box on the bus after a field trip.

The next morning Luis saw the lunchbox on the peanut-free table, closed. Amina waved. He waved back and went to his own table.

The school garden drinks from a rain barrel beside the shed. A blue line is painted inside the barrel. When the water is above the line, students fill watering cans from the spigot at the bottom. When the water is below the line, they use the hose for ten minutes and then stop, so the garden gets a drink without emptying the well.

Every Monday the garden club writes one line in a notebook: the date, "above" or "below," and whether they used cans or the hose.

In April it rained three nights. On the last Monday of April the water was above the blue line, so the club used cans. They did not turn the hose on at all.

Dear Grandma, Aunt Ruth let me help at the lighthouse museum on Saturday. The big lamp is electric now. The old oil can sits in a glass case with a sign that says, "Retired in 1962." I asked why it was locked up. Aunt Ruth said the can is empty and the metal is thin, so visitors look but do not touch.

We climbed 42 steps to the lamp room. I counted out loud and lost track near the top, so I counted the last ten again. The foghorn button plays a recording. Aunt Ruth said the real horn was too loud for the houses on the hill.

I saved you a postcard of the lamp. I will bring it Sunday. Love, Bea

Owen and Lila had one sheet of paper each and a pile of coins. Owen laid his sheet flat across two books. Three coins made the middle sag until it touched the table.

Lila folded her sheet into a W. The folds stood up like low walls. She set the coins in the center groove. The paper held eight coins before a wall tipped.

They wrote on the lab card, "The folded paper held more. Shape did the work, not a second sheet."

The fourth grade painted the street in front of the school on the gym wall. They included the bakery, the bus stop, and the school door. They left out the crosswalk.

At recess a kindergartner named Theo stood at the wall and walked his fingers across the painted street. "There's no place to cross," he said.

The next day the painters added thick white stripes. The principal hung a photo of the real crosswalk beside the mural. "Check the street before you say you are done," she said.

For years the bus rule was simple: sit anywhere. Every morning two riders, Samir and Elena, argued over the same window seat.

Ms. Grant, the driver, made a new rule on a Monday. The person who boards first may choose a seat, and that person keeps the seat all week. No trading before Friday.

By Friday the arguing had stopped. Samir had boarded first on Monday, so the window seat was his until the weekend. Elena took a seat by the door and read. On the next Monday they could choose again.

The trail-mix card said: 2 cups cereal, 1 cup raisins, 1/2 cup nuts. Nia poured 2 cups of raisins because she read the first number twice.

The mix was too sweet. She did not throw it out. She added 2 more cups of cereal and stirred. The sweetness faded.

She copied the card onto a new one and underlined each amount. Under the line she wrote, "Read the amount, then the food."

A pencil does not have lead in it. The dark center is graphite.

Workers cut a groove in a flat piece of wood called a slat. They lay a graphite stick in the groove and glue a second slat on top. The sandwich is then cut into separate pencils. Each pencil is painted. A metal band is squeezed, or crimped, around one end to hold the eraser.

The band has to be tight. If it is loose, the eraser twists off.

Nia's kite dived and spun. Her uncle watched one loop and said, "The tail is too short. A short tail lets the wind twist the kite."

She tied on a strip of cloth. The tail was then 4 feet long. The kite climbed and stayed steady, neither spinning nor diving.

In her notebook she wrote, "4-foot tail. Climbed. Did not spin."

The town library stays open until 7 on Thursdays. The late hours are for students whose buses get them home after 4, when the library used to lock the door.

A tutor sits at table 2. Snacks are apples. The librarian stopped serving chips because crumbs worked down into the keyboards.

Last Thursday 16 students came. The Thursday before that, it rained, and 9 students came. The librarian wrote, "Rain kept some of them home."

Field trip notes were taped to the classroom door.

Ms. Cole's note said: "Bring a hat, a water bottle, and closed shoes. Do not bring glass bottles."

A parent's note beside it said: "Pack sunscreen and a raincoat. The park has little shade, and the sky may turn."

The class walked the hedge with a one-page guide. The guide said a robin has a red chest. A starling is speckled all over and has no red chest.

Wes called a speckled bird a robin and made a mark in the robin row. Imani held the guide next to the bird. "No red chest," she said. "Speckles. That row is the starling."

Wes erased the robin mark and put it in the starling row. He wrote in the margin, "Check the chest before the tally."

Coat hooks in the hall are labeled by grade, not by student name. The grade 4 row is blue tape. The grade 5 row is green tape.

Lena's coat is green. She hung it on the green-tape row because the coat matched the tape. After school the grade 5 teacher, Mr. Cole, brought the coat back. "Green coat, blue row," he said. "The tape marks the grade, not the color of the coat."

Lena moved the coat. The next day she looked for the blue tape first.

A shadow is long when the sun is low and short when the sun is high. In the morning the sun is low, so a stick's shadow stretches. At noon the sun is high, and the shadow sits close to the stick. In the afternoon the sun is low again, and the shadow stretches the other way.

The class pushed a stick into the ground and traced the tip of the shadow at 9, at 12, and at 3. The noon mark was the one closest to the stick.

They skipped the tracing on Thursday. The sky was cloudy, and the shadow had no clear edge to trace.