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A1 Reading ⏱️ 8 Minutes 🌱 Food & History

🥔 The Amazing Potato

Discover the small vegetable with a giant story across the world!

📋 How to Use This Lesson

Teacher Note

Read the text aloud with the class first. Give students 5 minutes to read and answer the 8 questions. Then check the answers together with the Evidence sentences.

Student Note

Read the short story carefully. Look at the Word Helper if you find a new word, then try your best on all 8 questions!

📖 Reading Passage

60 words • Level A1

A cheerful cartoon potato character with friendly eyes wearing a small straw hat, sitting in a sunny potato farm field w

Farmers first grew potatoes about 8,000 years ago in the Andes mountains in South America. In the 16th century, potatoes traveled across the sea to Europe. Today, the potato is the third most important food crop in the world, after rice and wheat. The United Nations chose 30 May as the International Day of Potato to celebrate this yummy vegetable!

🎧 Listen to the key sentence: "The potato is the third most important food crop in the world."

💡 Word Helper

The Andes 🔊

A very long group of mountains in South America.

Century 🔊

A period of one hundred (100) years.

Crop 🔊

A plant that farmers grow for people to eat.

United Nations 🔊

A big team of countries working together.

✏️ Practice Questions (8 Tasks)

Answer the questions using evidence directly from the text!

1 True or False

Potatoes came to Europe in the 16th century.

____ True ____ False

2 True or False

30 May is International Day of Potato.

____ True ____ False

3 True or False

Potatoes were first grown in North America.

____ True ____ False

4 Multiple Choice

How many years ago did farmers first grow potatoes?

____ a. 80 years ago ____ b. 800 years ago ____ c. 8,000 years ago

5 Multiple Choice

The potato is the _____ most important food crop in the world.

____ a. first ____ b. second ____ c. third

6 Multiple Choice

Which two food crops are more important than the potato?

____ a. rice and wheat ____ b. corn and beans ____ c. apples and carrots

7 Fill in the Blank

Complete the sentence with the correct verb from the story:

Farmers in the Andes first ____ potatoes long ago.

Hint: Look at the very first sentence of the reading passage.

8 Fill in the Blank

Fill in the missing word:

The United ____ chose 30 May for this special day.

Hint: Check the Word Helper or the final sentence of the text.

Reading: The Story of Potatoes

🥔 The Amazing Potato

📋 How to Use This Lesson

📖 Reading Passage

💡 Word Helper

✏️ Practice Questions (8 Tasks)

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