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Worksheet Grade 2 Art & Music

Gorsebury Hydrant Painting: Colors That Stand Out on the Street

Grade 2 students read a made-up town's hydrant-painting rules, compare how many kids spotted two test designs, and plan a hydrant that stands out from the grass.

Objectives

  1. Students will explain that a fire hydrant is joined to a water pipe under the street.
  2. Students will use results from a spotting test to compare two hydrant designs.
  3. Students will choose colors with strong contrast so a design stands out from its background.

Vocabulary

Fire hydrant
The sturdy outlet on a water main that firefighters connect their hoses to. Utilities also use hydrants to flush pipes and test how much water the system can deliver.
Water main
A big underground pipe that carries drinking water beneath the streets to a neighborhood. Smaller service lines branch off it to reach each building.

Also: contrast, background, design, test

Teacher overview

Some towns invite residents and school groups to paint the fire hydrants along their streets, and those programs come with rules, because a hydrant has a job to do. The town of Gorsebury in this worksheet is made up, and so are its three painting rules, but the reasoning behind them is real: firefighters need to find a hydrant fast, the caps where hoses connect must still open, and in many places the color of the top cap tells firefighters something about the water supply. A class in Gorsebury painted two practice hydrants, set them on a grass strip beside a gray sidewalk, and counted how many children at the corner could spot each one. Students use those results to work out the design idea the sheet teaches, which is that a design stands out when its colors contrast with the background, whether or not those colors are bright or the details are careful.

Plan for a misconception about the hydrant itself. Many young children think a hydrant is a small tank that holds water inside it, like a thermos. In fact a hydrant is joined underground to a water main, one of the large pipes that carry water under the street to every house and business, and that is why a fire truck can keep pumping from it for a long time. Item 1 establishes this before any design work begins. A second, art-specific misconception appears at item 5: students often expect the design with more detail to win, and the green hydrant with its careful waves did not, because green on green grass blends in.

Read the opening text, the rules, and the results table aloud before students begin, and have crayons in green, dark blue, yellow, white, red, and brown available for items 9 and 10. Print a simple hydrant outline beside item 10 with the body, the top cap, and the two side caps drawn in.

Gorsebury Hydrant Painting: Colors That Stand Out on the Street — Grade 2 Art & Music
Name: ____________________________ Date: ______________

Student Worksheet

Read aloud: In the town of Gorsebury, kids may paint the fire hydrants on their street. A fire hydrant is joined to a big water pipe under the street. Firefighters hook a hose to it to get water fast. So a hydrant must be easy to find.

Here are the town rules for painting a hydrant.

  • Do not paint the top cap. Its color is a message for firefighters.
  • Do not paint the side caps. The hoses go there, and they must open fast.
  • Use colors that stand out from the grass and the sidewalk.

A class made two test hydrants. They put both on green grass by a gray sidewalk. Ten kids stood at the corner. Each kid raised a hand if they could see the hydrant.

Test hydrant How it looked Kids who could see it
Design A Dark green with dark blue waves 3
Design B Yellow with white and blue stripes 9
  1. What is a fire hydrant joined to?
  2. Who hooks a hose to a fire hydrant?
  3. Why must a hydrant be easy to find?
  4. Sam wants to paint the side caps pink. Can he? Tell why.
  5. Which design could more kids see?
  6. Design A is green. The grass is green too. Why was Design A hard to see?
  7. Circle the color that stands out most on green grass: dark green, brown, bright yellow.
  8. Design A has dark blue waves on dark green. How could you change the waves so kids can see them?
  9. Contrast means two colors look very different side by side. Name two colors with strong contrast.
  10. Now plan your own hydrant. Color the body. Leave the top cap and the side caps plain.
  11. Tell one way your hydrant will stand out on the street.
  12. Your hydrant will sit on a sidewalk made of red bricks. Should you paint it red? Tell why.

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

Answer Key
  1. Answer: A big water pipe under the street.
    Accept "a pipe," "a water pipe," or "the water main." An answer that says the water is kept inside the hydrant shows the tank misconception described in the Overview.
  2. Answer: Firefighters
  3. Answer: Firefighters need to get water fast when there is a fire.
    Accept any answer that ties finding the hydrant to fighting a fire quickly.
  4. Answer: No, because the hoses go on the side caps and they must open fast.
    Accept an answer that names the town rule or says paint could make the caps hard to open.
  5. Answer: Design B.
    Nine of the ten kids could see Design B, while only three could see Design A.
  6. Answer: It was the same color as the grass, so it blended in.
    Accept "it matched the grass," "it hid in the grass," or "there was no contrast."
  7. Answer: Bright yellow.
    Dark green matches the grass and brown is dark and dull beside it, while bright yellow is light and very different from green.
  8. Answer: Make the waves a light color, such as white or light blue.
    Accept any answer that makes the waves lighter or brighter than the dark green body. Changing the body to a light color and keeping dark waves is also correct, because either way the two colors now contrast.
  9. Answer: Yellow and dark blue.
    Accept any pair of one light color and one dark color, such as white and black or yellow and purple. Also accept a pair of opposite colors on the color wheel, such as red and green or blue and orange, because they look very different side by side. Two dark colors that look alike, such as dark green and dark blue, or two very light colors, do not have strong contrast.
  10. Answer: A colored hydrant body with the top cap and side caps left uncolored.
    Any colors are acceptable for the body as long as both kinds of caps are left plain. A student who colored the caps has broken the first two town rules, so ask them to reread those rules.
  11. Answer: It uses a bright or light color that looks different from the grass and the sidewalk. Accept any reason that compares the hydrant to what is around it. A reason such as "it is my favorite color" does not explain standing out, so ask what color the grass is.
  12. Answer: No, because a red hydrant would blend in with red bricks.
    Accept any answer that says the hydrant should be a different color from the bricks, such as white, yellow, or light blue. This item tests whether the student can apply contrast to a new background.

Differentiation

Support

Give these students a hydrant outline that has the top cap and side caps already shaded gray with the word "skip" printed on them, so the rules are visible in the drawing. Provide colored paper squares in green, yellow, dark blue, and white that they can hold against a green sheet to test contrast for items 7 through 9 before answering. Accept pointing or circling in place of writing for items 5 and 7.

Extension

Ask these students to design a hydrant for a street with snow on the ground and to explain in two sentences why their Gorsebury colors might not work there. They can also plan a third test hydrant, predict how many of the ten kids at the corner would see it, and describe how the class could run the test to check the prediction.

ELL supports

Show a photograph or simple drawing of a hydrant with the top cap, side caps, and body labeled, and point to each part while saying its name. Pre-teach stand out and blend in by holding a green crayon and then a yellow crayon against green paper. Allow answers to items 3, 6, and 11 as a labeled drawing or a short phrase, and provide the frame "It stands out because ___."

Extensions

With adult helpers, walk the block near the school, stay on the sidewalk, and count the hydrants the class can find, noting for each one what it sits beside, such as grass, brick, or concrete. Back in the classroom, students choose one real hydrant from the walk and design a paint plan for it on paper, following the Gorsebury rules and choosing colors that contrast with that hydrant's own background. Do not paint real hydrants without permission from the local water utility or fire department, and present the designs as a paper exhibit unless your town runs an approved painting program.