Worksheet Grade 1 Art & Music

Dabble Brook, Back to Front: A Grade 1 Overlap Drawing Sheet

A grade 1 art worksheet on depth: students build one brook picture back to front, letting a bush hide part of the water and a hand hide part of the bush.

Grade: Grade 1
Subject: Art & Music
Material: Worksheet
Time: 30 min
Prep: No prep
Materials: One printed copy per student, Crayons in blue, green, and brown, Pencils with erasers

Standards

W.1.1 Common Core ELA

Write opinion pieces in which they introduce the topic or name the book they are writing about, state an opinion, supply a reason for the opinion, and provide some sense of closure.

How this material aligns: Item 12 asks students to state an opinion about picking up trash near the brook, and item 13 asks for one reason and supplies the closing line. The drawing items carry the art content and are not claimed under this standard.

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This material is in the public domain (CC0) and may be copied, edited, and shared freely, without attribution. Updated 2026-09-03.

Objectives

Students will name which parts of a scene are far away and which are close.
Students will draw one shape in front of another so the front shape hides part of the back shape.
Students will state an opinion about litter near a brook and give one reason.

Vocabulary

Key words: overlap, in front, behind, hidden, bank

Teacher overview

Dabble Brook runs behind the school fence in the fictional town of Stackpole Green, and litter that blows off the picnic tables lands in the bushes along its bank before it reaches the water. This worksheet uses that scene to teach one drawing rule that carries into every picture a first grader makes: draw the far things first, then draw the near things over them and stop the far lines where the near shape begins. Overlap is what makes a flat page read as a place with depth, and it is also the fastest way to show a hand reaching for a cup rather than a hand floating beside one.

The misconception this page targets is the transparency drawing that nearly every first grader produces. Asked to draw one object in front of another, students either set the two side by side so nothing is covered, or they draw the back object whole and run its lines straight through the front object, so a bush appears to be made of glass. Item 7 and item 8 sit next to each other for that reason: one names a picture with no overlap at all, and the other names a picture where the brook line runs through the bush. Watch how students answer those two before you look at anything else on the page.

Print the sheet with one large drawing box, and read the items aloud one at a time so students finish each layer before the next direction arrives. Two cut paper shapes, one held in front of the other, settle any argument about what "in front" looks like faster than words do.

Dabble Brook, Back to Front: A Grade 1 Overlap Drawing Sheet — Grade 1 Art & Music

Name: ____________________________ Date: ______________

Student Worksheet

Read each step with your teacher. Then do it.

You will draw Dabble Brook. It runs past a park in the town of Stackpole Green. A cup blew into a bush by the brook. A girl named Nell picked the cup up.

You will draw three things. They are the brook, a bush, and a hand. Which one is far away?
Which one is close to you?
We draw far things first. Which one do you draw first?
Draw the brook in pencil in the big box. Make it a wide band near the top.
Draw a bush on the bank in pencil. Draw it over the band. Erase the brook lines inside the bush.
Your bush hides part of the brook. Which one looks like it is in front?
Gus drew his bush next to the brook. No part of it is hidden. Does his bush look like it is in front? Write yes or no.
Nell drew her bush over the brook. Then she drew the brook line right through the bush. What should she do to fix it?
Draw a cup in the bush. Let the bush hide part of the cup.
Draw a big hand in front of the bush. The hand is close to you. Erase the bush lines inside the hand. Then color the brook blue and the bush green.
A tree stands far past the brook. Do you draw that tree big or small?
The cup will land in the water if no one picks it up. Should we pick up trash by the brook? Write yes or no.
Write one line that tells why. Then write this last line: Then the brook stays clean.

From Water for Schools (waterforschools.org). This material is in the public domain (CC0) and may be copied, edited, and shared freely.

Answer Key

Answer: the brook. It sits farthest from the person looking at the picture, so it belongs in the back of the scene.
Answer: the hand. Nell's hand is the nearest thing in the scene, which is why it will be drawn last and drawn large.
Answer: the brook. The far shape goes down first, and every nearer shape is drawn over it.
Answer: a wide pencil band across the upper part of the box. Accept a straight band or a curved one as long as it runs from one side of the box to the other.
Answer: a bush drawn on top of the band, with the brook lines erased inside the bush so they end at its edge instead of crossing it. The covered part of the brook is not drawn.
Answer: the bush. A shape that hides part of another shape is read as the nearer of the two, which is what artists call overlap.
Answer: no. Nothing in Gus's picture is hidden, so the bush reads as a shape sitting beside the brook rather than in front of it.
Answer: stop the brook line at the edge of the bush. Nell can erase the part of the line inside the bush, which leaves the bush solid and puts it in front.
Answer: a cup drawn so the bush covers part of it. Any cup shape counts as long as one edge of it disappears behind the green.
Answer: a large hand drawn over the bush, with the bush lines erased inside the hand, and the brook colored blue and the bush green. Near things look bigger, so the hand should be the largest shape in the box.
Answer: small. Things that are far away look smaller, so a tree past the brook is drawn smaller than the bush on the near bank.
Answer: yes. A student who writes no still meets the standard if item 13 gives a real reason, because what is graded here is holding a position and backing it.
Answer: one reason plus the closing line. Reasons such as keeping fish safe or keeping the water clean all count, written or dictated, and the last line supplies the ending.

Differentiation

Support

Draw the band lightly in pencil on the page for these students so item 4 is already done and the work starts at the overlap in item 5. Before they draw, hand them two paper shapes, a blue strip and a green bush, and have them slide the bush over the strip and say what is hidden. Stop the page after item 10 and take items 12 and 13 aloud.

Extension

Ask these students to add a fourth layer to the scene in the town of Stackpole Green, such as a bench or a fence post, and to say where it belongs in the drawing order and what it covers. They can also trade pages with a partner and mark a small x at every spot where one shape hides another.

ELL supports

Teach in front, behind, and hidden with two paper shapes and a hand motion, saying each word as you move the shapes, before any student picks up a crayon. Print a small picture cue beside items 4, 5, 9, and 10 so the drawing task is clear without reading. Let students answer items 1, 2, 6, and 7 by pointing at part of the scene, and accept the reason in item 13 dictated in a home language with a short English line scribed beneath it.

Extensions

Walk the class past a fence, a hedge, or a wall on the school grounds and ask what each one hides, then have students draw that view using the same back-to-front order they used for Dabble Brook. Later in the year, return to the rule with a picture of the park in the town of Stackpole Green seen from the far bank, where the bush is now the far shape and the brook is the near one, so students find that the drawing order follows the distance rather than the object.