Lesson plan Grade 1 Art & Music
Painting the Winterberry Water Tower: A Grade 1 Design Lesson
A 45-minute grade 1 art lesson where students draw the tall shape of a town water tower and design a picture for the tank, then defend their choice.
Objectives
- Students will draw a water tower using a tall leg shape and a round tank shape.
- Students will show with an arrow how the tower's height moves water toward their school.
- Students will state an opinion about a tank design and give one reason for it.
Vocabulary
Key words: tower, tank, shape, design
Teacher overview
Towns store drinking water in tall tanks, and many of those tanks carry a painted picture chosen by the town itself. That gives first graders a design job with a client and a stated purpose. In this lesson students first draw the tower's working shape, a round tank held up high on long legs, and then design the picture that goes on the tank for a made-up town called Winterberry, ending with one sentence saying why the town should pick their design.
Fill the pinhole bottle at the sink and keep fingers over both holes until the demonstration. The bottom hole has more water above it, so its stream pushes out harder and shoots farther. A tank sits high on legs for the same reason: the taller the stack of water above the pipes, the harder the water pushes out at a sink. One demonstration makes that clearer to first graders than an explanation does. Tape a sheet of chart paper where the class can see it, because the opinion sentence frame goes there.
Procedure
Hook with the bottle (5 min): Hold the bottle still, about a hand's width above the tub, and uncover both holes at once. Read aloud: "Which hole pushed the water farther, the one with a little water above it or the one with a lot?" Take the answer by show of hands and say the sentence the class will keep: water pushes harder when there is more water above it.
Draw the working shape (10 min): On chart paper, draw the tower in three parts while students draw along on their own sheets: four long straight legs, one round tank sitting on top, and one thin pipe running down a leg and off the page toward a small school building. Have students add an arrow on the pipe pointing away from the tank to show which way the water travels. Name the parts as you draw them so tank, legs, and pipe are said aloud at least twice each.
Design the tank picture (20 min): Tell the class that the town of Winterberry has finished a new tower and wants one picture painted on the round tank. Students design that picture inside their drawn tank, keeping to two rules that hold a tank design together at a distance: use big shapes, because the tank is seen from far away, and use no more than three colors. Circulate and ask individual students what their picture tells a driver about Winterberry. Students who fill the tank with tiny detail need a quick reminder to step back and squint at their own work.
Write the opinion sentence (7 min): Below the drawing, students write or dictate two sentences using the frame posted on chart paper: "Winterberry should paint ___ on the tower. I think this because ___." Scribe for students who dictate. Confident writers add a closing line thanking the crew that will do the painting.
Share and check (3 min): Ask four students to hold up their drawings and read their reason aloud. Before dismissal, read aloud: "Point to the part of your drawing that holds the water." Every student should be pointing at the round tank rather than the legs. If more than five point at the legs, redraw the three parts together at the start of the next art period.
From Water for Schools (waterforschools.org). This material is in the public domain (CC0) and may be copied, edited, and shared freely.
Differentiation
Support
Provide a lightly printed outline of the legs and tank so the drawing time goes into the tank design rather than into the structure. Give a two-word opinion frame, "I picked ___," and scribe the reason. A pre-cut circle of paper to design on, glued into the tower afterward, removes the trouble of drawing inside a curved edge.
Extension
Ask students to design a second, smaller tank for a nearby neighborhood and explain in one sentence why a town might want two towers instead of one. Some students can add a scale figure, a person drawn at the base of the legs, and describe how much taller the tower stands.
ELL supports
Pre-teach tank, legs, and pipe by pointing to each part on the chart drawing and having the class trace the same shape in the air. Provide the opinion frame with picture cues beside the blanks. Accept the reason dictated in a student's home language with one English color or shape word added while scribing.
Extensions
Look up the water tower nearest your school on a map with the class and, if it carries a painted design, compare it with the students' drawings by asking which shapes can still be read from far away. Displaying the finished drawings in a hallway row makes a strong companion to a visit from a local water system worker, who can tell students what happens inside the tank they drew.