Worksheet Grade 2 Art & Music
Oakhatch School Rain Garden: A Side View and a Top View
Grade 2 students draw a made-up school's rain garden two ways: a side view showing the bowl shape that holds rain, and a top view with a key for two kinds of plants.
Objectives
- Students will draw a side view that shows how a rain garden's bowl shape holds rainwater.
- Students will draw a top view with a key that shows where two kinds of plants belong.
- Students will explain what a side view shows that a top view does not.
Vocabulary
- Rain garden
- A rain garden is a shallow planted dip in the ground that catches rain running off a roof or driveway and lets it soak slowly into the soil. Its deep-rooted plants help clean the water.
Also: side view, top view, key, soak in, runoff
Teacher overview
Oakhatch School is a made-up school where rain pours off the roof, down a downspout, and into a puddle that covers the path by the side door. The class plans a rain garden beside the downspout, and this worksheet asks students to draw it the way garden designers do, from two points of view. A side view shows how high and low the ground is, which is the only way to see the dip that holds the water. A top view works like a map and shows where each plant goes, and it needs a key so a reader knows which symbol stands for which plant. Choosing the right view for the job, and inventing clear symbols for the key, are the art decisions this sheet teaches.
Plan for a common misconception. Many people, adults included, picture a garden bed as a raised mound of soil, so students often draw the side view as a hill. A rain garden works only because it sits lower than the ground around it, and the rain collects in the dip and soaks in slowly after the storm, instead of running across the path. Item 5 brings this into the open, and it is worth pausing the class if many students have drawn a hill in item 3.
Print the sheet with two large empty boxes, one labeled "Box 1: Side view" and one labeled "Box 2: Top view," and a small empty box labeled "Key" beside Box 2. Read the opening text aloud before students begin, since it is longer than most second graders can read on their own, and reread the sentences about Plant W and Plant D before students reach items 6 and 7.
Student Worksheet
Read aloud: At Oakhatch School, rain runs off the roof. It goes down a pipe. Then it makes a big puddle by the door. The class will make a rain garden by the pipe. A rain garden is a low dip in the ground with plants in it. The dip holds the rain. Then the rain soaks into the soil.
Some plants like wet soil. We will call them Plant W. They go in the low middle. Some plants like dry soil. We will call them Plant D. They go on the high edge.
You can draw the garden two ways. A side view shows how high or low things are. A top view is what a bird sees from the sky. It shows where things are, like a map.
- Which view shows how deep the dip is?
- Which view shows where each plant goes?
- In Box 1, draw a side view. Draw the ground line. Make it dip down in the middle like a bowl.
- Color the rain in the low part of your side view. Use blue.
- Why is the rain garden shaped like a bowl and not like a hill? Write one sentence.
- Where should Plant W go, in the middle or on the edge?
- Where should Plant D go, in the middle or on the edge?
- In Box 2, draw a top view. Draw a big circle. Then draw a small circle in the middle for the low spot.
- Make a key. Pick one shape for Plant W. Pick a different shape for Plant D. Draw them in the key.
- Put 3 Plant W shapes and 5 Plant D shapes in your top view. Use your key.
- Draw an arrow in your top view. Show where the water from the pipe comes in.
- From the sky, you cannot see how deep the middle is. How could you show the low part in your top view?
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 side view.
A side view shows the ground line from the edge, so the reader can see how far down the dip goes. - Answer: The top view.
A top view looks straight down like a map, so every plant has its own spot on the page. - Answer: A ground line that is flat on both ends and dips down in the middle like a bowl.
Accept any U-shaped or bowl-shaped dip. A line that rises in the middle shows a hill, which is the misconception described in the Overview; ask the student where rain would go on that hill. - Answer: Blue water sitting in the bottom of the dip, with a flat top.
Water gathers in the lowest part and its top stays level. Redirect a student who colored blue along the slopes or above the ground line by asking where a ball would roll if it were dropped on the drawing. - Answer: A bowl holds the rain so it can soak in, while a hill would let the water run off.
Accept any sentence that says the dip keeps or holds the water. Stronger answers also say that the water stays out of the puddle by the door. - Answer: In the middle.
Plant W likes wet soil, and the low middle is where the water collects. - Answer: On the edge.
Plant D likes dry soil, and the high edge stays drier because water runs down away from it. - Answer: Two circles, one inside the other.
The big circle is the outside edge of the garden and the small circle is the low spot. Accept ovals or rounded shapes as long as the small shape sits inside the large one. - Answer: Two different shapes in the key, one labeled Plant W and one labeled Plant D.
Accept any two shapes that are easy to tell apart, such as a star and a dot. If the two shapes look almost the same, the key does not do its job, so ask the student to change one. - Answer: 3 Plant W shapes inside the small middle circle and 5 Plant D shapes near the outside edge Check that the shapes match the student's own key. A student who mixed the two kinds together has not yet connected the top view to the side view; point to the dip in Box 1 and ask which plants belong there.
- Answer: An arrow that starts outside the big circle and points in toward the middle.
Accept an arrow from any side, although the strongest answers start the arrow at a small drawing of the pipe or the school wall. - Answer: Shade the middle darker.
Accept darker blue or brown coloring in the small circle, rings drawn inside each other like a target, or a label that says low. Mapmakers use darker color and rings for the same purpose, so any of these is a real design choice.
Differentiation
Support
Give these students a Box 1 that already has a dotted bowl line to trace and a Box 2 that already has the two circles drawn. Provide the key shapes as two stickers or stamps so the decision in item 9 is which stamp stands for which plant, not how to draw a symbol. Let the student answer item 5 aloud while you scribe, and accept a drawing of rain running off a hill as the "not a hill" half of the answer.
Extension
Ask these students to add a third plant group, Plant M, which likes soil that is sometimes wet and sometimes dry, and to decide where it belongs in both views. They add a third symbol to the key and draw a middle ring for Plant M in the top view. They can also draw a small side view of the school path before the garden, with the puddle, beside their side view of the finished garden.
ELL supports
Show the difference between a side view and a top view with a real bowl: hold it at eye level for the side view, then hold it below the students' eyes for the top view, and let them sketch each. Pre-teach dip, edge, middle, and soak in with gestures. Accept one-word answers for items 1, 2, 6, and 7, and allow item 5 to be answered with a labeled drawing.
Extensions
Take the class outside after a rain to find the low spots where water collects on the school grounds. Students draw one spot in a side view and a top view on the back of the sheet, using the same shading or rings they chose for item 12. Back inside, compare which low spots might make good places for a rain garden and which already have a drain, which gives the class a real reason to look at the ground the way a designer does.