STAAR RLA Grade 5

The school council had seven chairs, and one was empty. Pilar was home with a fever. The question on the table was whether to move recess to the morning.

Felix, the secretary, read the rule taped inside the notebook. "A vote that changes the day waits if a member is absent." He closed the notebook. "We hear the idea. We do not vote."

The class president explained the morning recess. No hands went up for yes or no. Felix wrote at the bottom of the page, "Explained. Not voted. Wait for Pilar."

Leila's bowl looked finished when she pulled it from the kiln. An hour later a crack ran from the rim to the base. Ms. Farrell set the pieces on the table. "The clay was still hot, and the room air was cold. That shock split it."

A rule was painted on the kiln door: "Closed until the shelf is cool enough to touch." Leila had opened the door because she wanted to see the color.

On the next firing she left the door shut overnight. In the morning the shelf was warm, not hot, and her new bowl was whole.

Kenji measured the park path on a map with his thumb. The path was one inch long. He told his sister, "One inch. One mile. We can walk it before lunch."

His sister pointed at the key in the corner. It said, "1 inch = 2 miles." Kenji measured again. The ink was still one inch, so the walk was two miles.

They left at noon and reached the fountain at 1:10. Kenji said, "My thumb measured the ink. The key measured the walk."

Yara cupped her hands and shouted her name across the canyon. A moment later the name came back, softer. She turned, looking for another hiker. The trail behind her was empty.

Ranger Holt said, "That is an echo. Your voice hit the rock wall and bounced back. Nobody else is calling." He asked her to whisper. The whisper returned too, so faint she had to hold still to hear it.

The shout had come back clear. The whisper had come back faint. Yara said, "Same wall. Smaller sound."

Mr. Adel tapped the dough. "Yeast makes gas. The gas needs about an hour to puff this loaf. Bake it sooner and the crumb stays tight."

Jonah was hungry. He baked his piece after twenty minutes. The loaf came out heavy, with almost no holes. Mr. Adel cut it open and showed him the tight crumb.

Jonah's second piece stayed in the bowl for the full hour. The dough rose over the rim. Baked, it was light, and the cut face was full of holes. He wrote on the recipe card, "60 minutes. Not 20."

A sign at the beach listed the tides. High tide was 2:10. Low tide had been 8:05. Between those times, a sandbar led out to a rock shaped like a chair.

Noelle and her uncle stepped onto the bar at 1:00. The sand was wide. Her uncle read the sign again. "At 2:10 the water covers this path. We turn around at 1:40."

They touched the rock and walked back. At 1:40 the bar was already narrower. At 2:10 Noelle looked over her shoulder and saw water where their footprints had been.

The museum quilt had twenty squares. Paloma thought the words stitched in the corners were color notes, such as blue or red. She leaned in. The words were names.

The guide turned the center square toward the light. "Each person sewed the square that carries their name. This cloth was finished in 1934." The center name was R. Mendoza.

Paloma wrote two lines on her worksheet. "Names, not colors. Finished in 1934."

The trail map showed the north path leaving the post and running straight. Idris held the compass flat. The red end of the needle settled toward that path. "Red points north," he said.

His cousin Farid walked toward the tallest tree instead. The tree stood east of the post, and Farid's path curved off the map line. Idris stayed with the red end and reached the creek marker.

Farid met him there ten minutes later. Idris held up the map. "The tree is taller. The needle matches the path."

Tess turned in a headline for the school paper: "Wolves Destroy Hawks." The score had been 3 to 2. Ms. Nguyen, the editor, crossed the headline out.

"Destroy means we crushed them," Ms. Nguyen said. "The score was one point. Use the words that match." She wrote a new line under Tess's: "Wolves Win by One."

Tess kept both lines in her notes and starred the second. Under the star she wrote, "3 to 2 is a close game."

Rain pushed a mat of sticks against the storm drain. Water rose over the curb and spread across the sidewalk. The drain cover was still in place. The sticks were the block.

Bruno pulled the sticks free with a rake. The pool dropped, and water spun down the open grate. He set the wet sticks on the grass, away from the curb.

He told his father, "The sticks were a dam. The drain was fine." His father pointed at the grass. "Leave them there until the rain stops, or the next rush will pack them against the grate again."

Dr. Cho set a lamp in the middle of the table. "The lamp is the sun," she said. Sable held a ball on a string. "This ball is Earth. The side facing the lamp is day. The far side is night. The sun did not go out."

Sable turned the ball once, and day and night switched places. "That spin is one day," Dr. Cho said. Then Sable walked the ball all the way around the lamp. "That trip is one year."

Sable looked at the lamp, then at the ball. "A spin is a day. The long walk is a year."

The card on the tomato crate said, "$2 per pound." Hector counted four tomatoes and said, "Eight dollars," as if each tomato cost two dollars.

Mrs. Quill set the four tomatoes on the scale. The needle stopped at 2 pounds. "Two pounds, at two dollars a pound, is four dollars," she said. She tapped the card. "Per pound means by weight, not by piece."

Hector paid four dollars. He repeated the phrase so he would keep it. "Per pound means by weight."

The snorkel sign had two lines: "Wear fins. Do not stand on the reef." Ren still had shoes on. He lowered his feet until they touched a pale branch of coral, and the branch snapped.

The guide lifted the broken piece. "Coral is alive, and it grows slowly. Standing breaks what took years." Ren put the fins on and floated. His feet did not touch again.

Before the boat left, he read the sign to the guide, both lines, with the fins already on his feet.

The school history book captioned a photo "Main hall, 1968." Camila turned the print over. Pencil on the back said, "Main hall, 1958."

Ms. Kaplan set the book and the print side by side. "The caption was typed later, and the year is wrong. The pencil was written when the photo was made."

She did not rewrite the book. She slipped a paper strip into that page: "See the back of the print. The year is 1958."

A white box was painted on Andre's lane. Coach Voss said, "The exchange has to happen inside the box. Exchange means the handoff. Outside the box, the pass does not count."

On the first run Simone reached him late. Their hands met past the far line. Coach Voss shook his head. "Fast legs. Late pass. No count."

On the second run Andre slowed two steps. Simone arrived while both of them were still inside the paint. The baton changed hands. Coach Voss said, "That one counts."

Two families shared one well. A board on the pump read, "Monday: Rahman, one bucket. Tuesday: Berg, one bucket." A measuring stick stood in the water.

On Monday evening the stick showed the water a hand lower than one bucket could explain. Mr. Rahman looked at the board. The Berg bucket was wet, and it was not Tuesday.

He wrote under the days, "Wet bucket on the wrong day. Stick dropped extra." At the next meeting both families agreed to fill only on their own morning and to read the stick before they left.

The pool flew one flag at a time. Blue meant the deep end was open. Yellow meant the deep end was closed. A sign under the flags said, "Yellow: drain repair. Stay in the shallow end."

Harvey was new. He saw open water and jumped from the deep-end board while the yellow flag was up. Lifeguard Rees blew the whistle and pointed at the flag, then at the sign.

Harvey climbed out, read the sign aloud, and waited in the shallow end. When the flag changed to blue, he asked before he climbed the board again. Rees nodded.