Class 5 English Chapter 6: What a Tank!

A rooster on the roof

Ravneet is cycling through a village in Punjab. She brakes so hard that her slippers slide. On the roof of a house sits a giant brown rooster. It does not move. It does not crow. Her cousin laughs at her face. That rooster, he says, is the family water tank.

Why anyone stores water

Rain does not fall all year. So people have always saved it for the dry months. Long ago they built huge stores of water. Those stores did more than one job. They kept floods away from the town. They gave clean water to drink. They also gave everyone a place to meet.

Ponds in Tamil Nadu

In Tamil Nadu, villages still keep ponds called Ooranis. Rain runs into them in the wet months. The water then waits there, quiet and cool. People take it home to drink. Farmers also carry it to their fields. One pond can serve a whole village.

Wells in Kerala

Kerala has its own answer, the Panam Keni. It is a well lined with wood. The lining keeps the water clean and sweet. The best part comes in May. Many wells run dry in the hottest months, but these ones do not. That is why people trust them.

A room under the sand

The Thar region of Rajasthan is very dry. There people build a tanka. A tanka is a store for water under the ground. Rain is led into it and the lid is closed. The store can then last six or seven months. Under the hot sand, the water stays cool.

The tank we all know

Most homes today have a tank of their own. It holds hundreds of litres. Some hold thousands. It is usually built or placed on the roof. A tank like this is called an overhead tank. Water runs down from it to every tap in the house.

Punjab, north west on the map

Punjab lies in the north western part of India. It is rich in culture and heritage. Its fields, its food and its music are famous. Its villages hold one more surprise. On the rooftops there, the water tanks are quite unlike anyone else's.

Tanks with a shape

Look up in a Punjab village and you may see anything at all. A rooster in brown, standing still. A flower the size of a room. A football nobody could ever kick. An aeroplane ready to take off. Even a statue. People plan these shapes with care. The tank is not hidden away. It stands on the roof for the whole street to see.

Every tank tells you something

The shape is a message about the house below. A farmer may choose a tractor, a bullock cart or a rooster. Someone who loves football may choose a football. So a visitor can guess a little about a family before knocking on the door.

How such a tank is made

All these tanks are made of cement. First, steel rods are bent into a frame. The frame gives the tank its shape. Then concrete is poured over the rods. When it is hard, the tank is lifted onto the roof. It can hold hundreds of litres.

Words worth keeping

This lesson gives us useful words. Conservation means saving something carefully. Unique means one of a kind. Heritage is what older people hand down to us. Concrete is a hard mix of cement, sand and stone. Overhead means above our heads.

More than a water store

These tanks hold water, but they hold more than that. They show skill, humour and pride. Neighbours talk about them. Children remember them. That is why the lesson calls such tanks the heart of their villages. A useful thing can also be a beautiful thing.

Scenario:

Kabir says rooftop tanks are a modern idea. Sana points to the lesson and disagrees. People stored water in ponds, wells and underground rooms long before any roof held a tank. Their teacher asks the class to work one thing out. A family of five uses about one hundred litres a day. A common rooftop tank holds five hundred litres. The children divide and find that it lasts five days. Then they think about a village pond. A pond serves a whole village, and it fills only when rain falls. Kabir sees the difference. A tank stores water that has been brought to it, while a pond stores water that has fallen into it.

Analysis:

Both hold water, but they are filled in opposite ways. One waits for a pump and the other waits for rain.

Activity:

Find out how much water your family uses in a day. Work out how long a five hundred litre tank would last you.

An underground store in the Thar region can keep a family in water for more than half a year.

Many homes now send roof rainwater down a pipe into a tank. That is called rainwater harvesting.

Three old water stores — O-P-T: Oorani, Panam Keni, Tanka — O for the ponds of Tamil Nadu. P for the wooden wells of Kerala. T for the rooms under the sand of Rajasthan.

A note with no room

Mehak has one small slip of paper. She wants to leave a message for her aunt. She writes, "I have gone to the well. I will be back by six." The slip runs out. Her brother grins and takes the pencil. He rubs out four words and writes two.

Two words in one

What he wrote was "I've gone" and "I'll be back". These are short forms, or contractions. Two words are pushed together. Some letters are dropped on the way. The meaning does not change at all. Only the spelling gets shorter.

The apostrophe holds the gap

Look at the little mark in I've. That is an apostrophe. It stands exactly where the missing letters used to be. In I've, the letters h and a are gone. In she'll, the letters w, i and l are gone. No apostrophe means no short form.

Short forms with not

This is the biggest family of short forms. Has not turns into hasn't. Was not turns into wasn't. Should not turns into shouldn't. Does not turns into doesn't. The letter o slips away every time, and the apostrophe stands in its place.

Short forms with will and have

We will turns into we'll. They will turns into they'll. I have turns into I've. We have turns into we've. Say them aloud and you will hear how quick they are. That is why we use them when we talk.

One odd one out

Most short forms are easy to guess. One is not. Will not does not become willn't. It becomes won't. There is no rule to help here. You simply have to remember it, the way you remember your own house number.

Sentences that burst

Some sentences do not just tell. They burst. "What a huge pumpkin that is!" "Oh, the tank is full again!" Sentences like these are called exclamatory sentences. They show a strong feeling. They end with an exclamation mark, not a full stop.

Words that open a shout

Certain words often start such a sentence. Wow. Oh. Hurray. Alas. The words what and how can start one too, as in "How cold this water is!" The mark at the end does the rest of the work.

Naming the feeling

Every exclamatory sentence carries a feeling. Try to name it. "Wow, the tank is shaped like a tractor!" shows wonder. "Oh, my glass has cracked!" shows sadness. "Hurray, the water is back!" shows relief. Naming the feeling helps you read the line aloud well.

Animal families

English has a separate word for the father, the mother and the baby of many animals. A deer family has a buck, a doe and a fawn. A sheep family has a ram, a ewe and a lamb.

Two more families

Birds have these words too. A duck family has a drake, a duck and a duckling. A goose family has a gander, a goose and a gosling. Notice how the baby names often end in the same way, with ling.

Why all this helps

Short forms make your writing sound like real speech. Exclamation marks let your reader hear your feeling. Family words save you from writing "the baby of a sheep" every time. Together they make your English shorter, warmer and clearer.

Scenario:

Class 5 is making signs for the school water tank. Ravi writes: do not waste water. Ira writes: don't waste water! The class compares the two. The short form sounds like a friend speaking, and the mark at the end adds force. Their teacher says both are correct and they do different work. A notice on an office door would keep do not. A poster on a wall can use don't. The class then writes a second poster about the pond animals. They need the right names for the young ones. A baby frog is a tadpole and a baby duck is a duckling. Ira is pleased with her poster.

Analysis:

A short form is not a mistake, it is a choice of voice. The poster wants a voice and the office notice does not.

Activity:

Make two posters about saving water, one with short forms and an exclamation mark and one without. Ask your class which they notice first.

Title:

Short form snap

What You Notice:

The not family is easy to match. Won't catches almost everyone the first time.

The word apostrophe comes from a Greek word that means turning away.

An exclamation mark was once printed as the letters i and o, one above the other.

Where the apostrophe goes — The gap gets the mark — Find the letters that went missing. Put the apostrophe in that gap, not at the join of the two words.

The tank that ran over

Farida wakes at dawn to a splashing sound. She climbs to the terrace in her slippers. Water is pouring off the roof like a small waterfall. Somebody switched the pump on at night and forgot it. The tank has been running over for an hour. Nobody heard a thing.

Where water slips away

Waste is usually quiet. A tap drips all night in an empty kitchen. A hose washes one scooter and fills a whole drum. A garden is watered at noon, when the sun drinks most of it. A tank runs over while everyone sleeps.

Small changes, big saving

Each leak has a small cure. A worn rubber washer costs very little to change. A bucket does the scooter better than a hose. Water the pots after sunset. Fit a simple alarm on the tank, or just set a timer for the pump.

Talking in a group of three

Sit in threes and take turns. One speaks, the other two listen. Then swap. Do not begin with a big speech. Begin with one clear example from your own home. After each turn, ask the group one question and let them answer.

Say it aloud and listen

English plays tricks on the ear. Say "a nice man" quickly. Now say "an ice man". They sound almost the same, but the meanings are far apart. Say "tall king" and then "talking". The sounds are the same, yet the words break in different places.

Words that sound alike

Some words are true twins in sound. Sun and son. Tail and tale. Pair and pear. These are called homophones. The sound gives you no help at all here. Only the meaning of the whole sentence tells you which word to write.

Listening for the facts

When someone reads a passage aloud, your ears must hunt. Catch the names. Catch the places. Catch the numbers. Catch what happened first and what happened next. Jot a word or two. A short note is worth more than a long memory.

Choosing the right answer

In a listening test, wait for the whole passage. Then read all four choices before you tick. Two choices often look alike. Pick the one the passage really said, not the one that merely sounds sensible.

A poster in four parts

A good poster has four parts. A topic across the top. One short slogan. Two or three reasons in short lines. An invitation with a day, a time and a place. Leave space for a picture. A crowded poster is never read.

Making a slogan stick

A slogan should be short enough to shout. Six words are plenty. A beat helps, and so does a rhyme. "Save every drop today" is easy to remember. "We should all try to reduce the wastage of water" is not.

A word hunt that ends in er

Many useful words end in er. Water, farmer, shoulder, thunder, corner, ladder, winter, teacher. Try the ending or as well, as in doctor and tractor. Then try at, as in format and combat. Keep your list in your notebook.

Speak, listen, write

These three skills work as one team. You speak to share what you have noticed. You listen to learn what others have noticed. You write so that people who never met you can act on it. A poster on a wall can save a whole street some water.

Scenario:

At a school in Jodhpur, Class 5 noticed a wet patch on the wall below the roof tank. It appeared every morning by half past seven. The children put an empty bucket under the overflow pipe for four days. Each day the bucket filled and then spilled over. Their teacher helped them measure roughly how much was lost. They wrote a short, polite letter to the head teacher with their figures. A plumber fitted a simple float valve, which shuts the inlet when the tank is full. The wet patch dried up within a week. The class then wrote a report for the school wall magazine, with a drawing of the valve and a slogan across the top.

Analysis:

Careful watching, simple measuring and clear writing together fixed a real leak. English gave the class the letter, the report and the slogan.

Activity:

Watch one tap or tank at home for three days. Note when it drips or overflows, and draw the simple cure you would suggest.

A tap that drips once a second can lose a bucket of water in a single day.

English has hundreds of homophones, which is why spelling bees are so hard.

What to catch while listening — W-W-W-N: Who, What, Where, Number — Ask who it happened to, what happened, where it happened and how many. Those four answer most listening questions.