Keeping Bones Healthy Reading

4th Grade ScienceSkeletal System4 pages

About this worksheet

A four-paragraph passage of about 250 words opens this 4th grade science reading on the skeletal system. It describes bones as living tissue, growth until about age 25, calcium from milk, yogurt, cheese and kale, vitamin D from sunlight, and weight-bearing exercise such as running and jumping. The last paragraph explains how a cast holds a broken bone while new bone grows. Eight questions follow across pages 1 to 3, and page 4 is the answer key. The sheet fits NGSS 4-LS1-1 and Common Core RI.4.1.

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Keeping Bones Healthy Reading: Skeletal System - page 1

Keeping Bones Healthy Reading: Skeletal System - page 2

Keeping Bones Healthy Reading: Skeletal System - page 3

Keeping Bones Healthy Reading: Skeletal System - page 4

Curriculum objectives covered

4-LS1-1

“Construct an argument that plants and animals have internal and external structures that function to support survival, growth, behavior, and reproduction.”

Questions 5, 7 and 8 connect nutrition, exercise and a cast to how living bone grows and repairs itself.

RI.4.1

“Refer to details and examples in a text when explaining what the text says explicitly and when drawing inferences from the text.”

Question 6 asks for a quoted phrase from the first paragraph, and question 8 asks for evidence from the passage.

What's inside this worksheet

The Passage

Four short paragraphs beside a photo of a bone and a milk carton. They cover living bone cells, calcium and fortified foods, vitamin D and weight-bearing exercise, and how a cast helps a break heal.

Part 1 Reading Check

Four multiple choice questions on the age bones keep growing, why the body needs vitamin D, the meaning of fortified and the best example of weight-bearing exercise.

Part 2 Calcium Food Sort

Six foods (yogurt, gummy candy, cheese, kale, potato chips and soda) go into two columns, good sources of calcium and not good sources.

Part 3 Think and Explain

Three written answers. Students quote a phrase that shows why a museum skeleton looks lifeless, explain how a broken bone heals and what the cast does, and give two ways an indoor, soda-only routine could affect bones.

Answers

Letter answers for questions 1 to 4, the sorted foods and model answers for the written questions. Question 8 will vary, but answers should use evidence from the text.

How teachers use it

Read it twice

Read the passage aloud once, then have students underline every food it names. Most can then do the calcium sort without looking back.

Mark the evidence

Question 6 asks for a quoted phrase, so model it first. Show the class how to copy the words dry, hard, and lifeless exactly and put quotation marks around them.

Split the pages

Use page 2 as a quick check after a nutrition lesson and send Part 3 home. The soda scenario in question 8 gets students arguing for different fixes.

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