The Painted Cliffs of Lake Superior
Maya leaned against the cold aluminum railing of the tour boat, watching the deep blue waves ripple underneath. Her family had spent hours driving across Michigan to reach Pictured Rocks National Lakeshore. Maya’s younger brother was busy hunting for snacks in his backpack, but Maya kept her eyes fixed on the distant horizon. She had seen photographs of the park in travel guidebooks, but she doubted the real place could live up to the colorful pictures.
As the boat glided closer to the shoreline, the calm lake waters shifted from dark navy to an astonishing shade of turquoise. Suddenly, the boat turned around a rocky point, and Maya gasped. Towering sandstone cliffs surged upward hundreds of feet into the bright sky. The giant rock faces were not plain brown or gray as she had imagined. Instead, they were covered in magnificent vertical stripes of fiery orange, mossy green, coal black, and mustard yellow. The sunlight hit the wet stone, making the cliff side look like a freshly painted canvas stretched along the coast.
"Look at all those colors!" Maya exclaimed, pointing toward a section where the cliffs arched gracefully over the swirling water.
- sandstone:
- A type of sedimentary rock formed from compressed grains of sand.
- turquoise:
- A striking greenish-blue color.
- groundwater:
- Water located beneath the earth's surface in soil pores and rock crevices.
- minerals:
- Naturally occurring solid materials found in rocks and soil.
- formations:
- Unique rock structures shaped over time by natural forces.
More sheets from this passage
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fix the sentence
Sentences from the passage with the capitals and punctuation removed — rewrite each one correctly.
vocabulary worksheet
Match the passage words to their meanings, then fill the missing words back into real sentences.
writing prompts
Two writing tasks that build on the passage, with plenty of lines to write on.
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One PDF with a cover, contents page and every answer key at the back.
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About this short story passage for Upper Elementary
“The Painted Cliffs of Lake Superior” is a short story reading passage about Pictured Rocks National Lakeshore, written for Upper Elementary. It takes about 3 minutes to read (380 words) and comes with an interactive quiz and a printable worksheet with comprehension questions and an answer key.