Lesson plan Grade 3 Art & Music
Copperkettle Water Plant Tour: Designing Wayfinding Pictograms
A grade 3 art lesson where students design no-word picture signs to guide visitors through a water treatment plant tour, meeting set icon rules.
Objectives
- Students will design picture-only signs that guide a visitor to four tour stops without words.
- Students will write a short caption for each sign telling what happens at that stop.
Vocabulary
Key words: pictogram, wayfinding, sign, symbol, tour
Teacher overview
The Copperkettle Water Plant is a made-up treatment plant that welcomes school groups for tours. On a tour, visitors walk to four stops where water is cleaned: the screen that catches leaves and trash, the mixing tank where dirt clumps together, the sand filter, and the tank where the water is stored before it goes to homes. The plant wants signs that even a young child or a visitor who reads a different language can follow, so the signs use pictures instead of words. This lesson has students design these wayfinding pictograms. A pictogram is a small picture that stands for an idea. Because the signs must work with no words and only two marker colors, students practice designing to real rules, which is what makers of public signs actually do.
Procedure
Hook (5 min): Show two or three familiar picture-only signs, such as a stick figure for a restroom or a bent arrow for a turn. Ask how people know what these mean without reading. Draw out that a good picture sign is simple and clear from far away.
Direct instruction (10 min): Introduce the four tour stops and the two design rules: each sign uses one main picture, and no more than two marker colors. Model a weak sign (too many tiny details) and a strong sign (one bold, simple shape) for the screen stop, thinking aloud about why the simple one reads better.
Design work (20 min): Each student picks two of the four stops and designs a pictogram for each on a sign shape, in pencil first, then in two marker colors. Remind them to test their picture by holding it at arm's length to check that the shape still reads clearly. When both pictograms are finished, each student writes a one- or two-sentence caption on the back of each sign that names the stop and tells what happens to the water there.
Gallery and formative check (7 min): Post the finished signs by stop. Students do a silent walk and place a small tally mark under any sign whose meaning they can guess without help. Signs with several marks are meeting the "clear without words" goal; use signs with few marks to discuss what would make them clearer.
Debrief (3 min): Ask two students to explain one choice they made to keep a sign simple, and connect it back to why the plant wants picture-only signs for every visitor.
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 sign shape with a light center circle to hold the main picture, so students have a bounded space and are less likely to crowd in small details. Offer picture starters (a leaf, a swirl, a stack of dots for sand) they can adapt.
Extension
Ask students to design an arrow companion sign that shows the order of the four stops, and to explain in one sentence why a visitor needs to see the stops in the correct order.
ELL supports
Because the signs use no words, this task is a strong entry point for multilingual learners. For the written caption, allow a short phrase plus a labeled sketch, and let students say the caption aloud in their home language first if that helps them plan the English sentence.
Extensions
Invite the class to compare their pictograms with the real picture signs posted in the school building, such as exit or restroom signs, and list one feature the school signs share with the strongest plant signs.