Worksheet Grade 4 Art & Music

Dunlin Run Creek Critters: A Field-Guide Sketching Worksheet

Grade 4 students learn how field artists draw creek insects for a fictional stream-testing guide, using symmetry, clean outlines, texture, and labeled leader lines.

Grade: Grade 4
Subject: Art & Music
Material: Worksheet
Time: 45 min
Prep: Low prep
Materials: One printed copy per student with a large drawing box on the back, Pencils with erasers, Fine black pens or thin black markers, Optional: teacher-provided photos of a mayfly nymph, a stonefly nymph, and a caddisfly case

Standards

RI.4.1 Common Core ELA

Refer to details and examples in a text when explaining what the text says explicitly and when drawing inferences from the text.

How this material aligns: Items 1, 2, 4, and 5 ask students to refer to details in the Dunlin Run field notes, and item 6 asks them to infer from those notes why a wrong tail count would mislead a volunteer. The drawing and design items carry the art content and are not claimed under this standard.

All materials for RI.4.1 →

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This material is in the public domain (CC0) and may be copied, edited, and shared freely, without attribution. Updated 2026-09-24.

Objectives

Students will use a center line and the three insect body parts to draw a creek insect whose two sides match.
Students will choose line types and textures that make a black-ink field-guide drawing clear without color.
Students will place labels and leader lines so a reader can match every word to the right part.

Vocabulary

Key words: symmetry, contour line, texture, leader line, nymph, thorax, abdomen, field guide

Teacher overview

Volunteer stream teams in many communities check the health of a creek by turning over rocks and identifying the small animals that live underneath. Mayfly nymphs, stonefly nymphs, and caddisfly larvae need clean water with plenty of oxygen, so a creek where they are common is usually in good condition. In the fictional town of Gannet Ford, the volunteer team that samples Dunlin Run each spring is making a black-ink picture guide for new volunteers, and this worksheet teaches the drawing habits that make such a guide useful: a center line for symmetry, a smooth contour outline, texture in place of color, and labels that sit outside the drawing with leader lines that never cross.

The misconception this page targets is that a field-guide drawing is a decorative drawing. Students often add a third tail, a pattern of spots, or a smiling face because it looks better, and they may not yet see that a guide drawing is judged by whether a stranger can use it to name the animal in the tray. The number of tails and the place where the gills grow are the features volunteers actually check, so item 6 asks students to explain what goes wrong when one of those features is changed for looks. A second, smaller misconception is that a large drawing implies a large animal, which item 12 addresses through the size note.

The field notes on the page give every fact that items 1 through 6 require, so no outside research is needed. If you can project a photo of each animal, do so after students finish item 6, since seeing the gills and tails in a real photograph makes the drawing in item 15 much more accurate. Allow about 25 minutes for items 1 through 14 and 20 minutes for the final drawing.

Dunlin Run Creek Critters: A Field-Guide Sketching Worksheet — Grade 4 Art & Music

Name: ____________________________ Date: ______________

Student Worksheet

Dunlin Run field notes

Gannet Ford is a fictional town. Every spring, a team of helpers checks Dunlin Run, a creek near the town. They turn over rocks in the creek. They count the small animals that live underneath. Some of these animals need clean water with lots of oxygen. When the team finds many of them, the creek is most likely healthy. The team is making a picture guide for new helpers. The guide will be printed in black ink only.

Here are the notes for three creek animals.

All three: They are young insects. An insect's body has three parts. The head is in front. The thorax is in the middle. The abdomen is at the back. All six legs grow from the thorax. The left side of each animal matches the right side, like a mirror. Artists call this symmetry.
Mayfly nymph: Most have three thin tails. Small gills line both sides of the abdomen. On many mayflies the gills look like tiny leaves or feathers. Each foot has one claw.
Stonefly nymph: It has two tails. It has no gills on its abdomen. Each foot has two claws.
Caddisfly larva: Many of them build a case to hide in. The case is a tube made of tiny pebbles or bits of leaves.
The mayfly nymph in the team's tray is shorter than a paper clip.

Tips from field artists

A contour line is the outline around a shape.
Texture is how a surface would feel, such as bumpy, smooth, or fuzzy. In black ink, artists show texture with the kinds of lines and dots they use.
A leader line is a thin, straight line that goes from a label to the part it names.

Questions

Name the three parts of an insect's body, in order from front to back.
On which body part will you draw all six legs?
Before you draw, you make a faint line straight down the middle of the box. Why does this line help you draw a nymph?
How many tails will you draw on the mayfly nymph?
Both nymphs have tails. Besides the tails, name one thing that tells a mayfly nymph apart from a stonefly nymph.
Jonah drew a stonefly nymph with three tails. He thought three looked better. Why could his drawing trick a new helper?
For the outline of the body, which is better: one smooth, sure line or many short, fuzzy lines? Tell why.
Where on the mayfly drawing would short, soft, feathery lines be a good choice? Tell why.
Should the labels go inside the drawing or outside it, in the empty space? Tell why.
On Mia's page, two leader lines cross each other. What problem could this cause for a reader?
The guide is printed in black ink. How can you show that a caddisfly case is made of tiny pebbles without using color?
Pia drew her mayfly nymph as long as her hand. Under it she wrote, "Drawn 5 times real size." Why does the guide need a note like this?
Write one sentence for the guide. Tell a new helper what to look at first to know an animal is a mayfly nymph.
Write one sentence for the guide. Tell what it means when the team finds many mayfly nymphs in Dunlin Run.
Draw the mayfly nymph in the big box on the back. Use a faint center line, a smooth outline, three tails, and gills on both sides. Add at least three labels with leader lines. Write a size note under your drawing.

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: head, thorax, abdomen.
The field notes list the head in front, the thorax in the middle, and the abdomen at the back.
Answer: the thorax.
The notes say that all six legs grow from the thorax, the middle part. Drawings that attach legs to the abdomen should be corrected before item 15.
Answer: It helps make the two sides match.
The notes say the left side matches the right side like a mirror, which is symmetry. A center line gives the student a place to measure from, so legs, gills, and tails can be placed evenly on both sides.
Answer: three tails.
The notes say most mayfly nymphs have three thin tails.
Answer: the gills on the abdomen.
Mayfly nymphs have gills along both sides of the abdomen, and stonefly nymphs do not. Also accept the claws: one claw on each foot for a mayfly and two for a stonefly.
Answer: It would look like a mayfly nymph.
Helpers count tails to tell the two animals apart. Three tails is a mayfly feature, so a new helper using Jonah's drawing could give the wrong name to a stonefly, and the team's count for the creek would be wrong. For that reason, the tail count in a guide drawing has to match the field notes.
Answer: one smooth, sure line.
A single clean contour line shows the exact edge of the shape and prints clearly in black ink. Many fuzzy lines blur the edge, so the reader cannot tell where the body ends.
Answer: on the gills.
The gills are soft and look like tiny leaves or feathers, so short, feathery lines show their texture. Using the same soft lines on the body outline would make the whole animal look fuzzy.
Answer: outside the drawing.
Labels in the empty space do not cover any body parts. A leader line then connects each label to its part, so the drawing stays clear and the words stay easy to read.
Answer: The reader could match a label to the wrong part.
Where two lines cross, the eye can follow the wrong line from the crossing point. Moving the labels so each line runs straight to its part, without crossing, fixes the problem.
Answer: Use texture.
Draw many small, rounded shapes packed tightly together, like tiny stones, and darken one side of each shape with shading or dots. The bumpy pattern tells the reader the case is made of pebbles, with no color needed.
Answer: It tells the reader the real animal is much smaller.
The real nymph is shorter than a paper clip. Without the note, a new helper might look for an animal as long as a hand. The note also explains why the drawing is large, which is so that small parts such as gills and claws can be seen.
Answer: Accept a sentence that points to the tails or the gills.
A strong sentence: "Count the tails first, because most mayfly nymphs have three." Also accept a sentence that tells the helper to look for gills along the sides of the abdomen.
Answer: Accept a sentence that links many mayflies to clean water.
A strong sentence: "Finding many mayfly nymphs means Dunlin Run most likely has clean water with plenty of oxygen." The idea comes from the field notes, which say these animals need clean water with lots of oxygen.
Answer: Accept any drawing that meets the checklist.
Check for a faint center line with matching sides; a head, thorax, and abdomen; six legs attached to the thorax; three tails; gills along both sides of the abdomen drawn with lighter, feathery lines; a smooth contour outline; at least three labels placed outside the drawing with leader lines that do not cross; and a size note such as "Drawn 5 times real size."

Differentiation

Support

Print a faint center line and three light ovals for the head, thorax, and abdomen in the drawing box, so these students begin item 15 by adding legs, tails, and gills to a body that is already in proportion. Read the field notes aloud with the class before items 1 through 6, and let these students underline the sentence that answers each item. Offer a word bank for labels: head, thorax, abdomen, leg, gill, tail.

Extension

Ask these students to draw the stonefly nymph beside the mayfly at the same size, so a new helper can compare the two animals on one page. They should label the two features that tell the animals apart (the tail count and the gills) and write a caption that explains the comparison. A further challenge is to draw a caddisfly case in cross-section, showing the larva inside, and to choose a different texture for the case than for the larva's body.

ELL supports

Before the worksheet, teach head, thorax, abdomen, tail, gill, and claw by pointing to each part on a large projected drawing and having students point to their own head, chest, and belly as a comparison. Pre-teach inside, outside, cross, and match with two pencils and a label card. Allow students to answer items 1, 2, 4, and 5 by labeling a small sketch instead of writing a sentence, and accept items 13 and 14 as one short sentence built from a frame such as "Look at the ___ first."

Extensions

If a local watershed group, nature center, or water utility runs volunteer stream monitoring, invite a member to show the class a sampling tray and the identification sheets their volunteers use, then compare those sheets with the students' drawings. Where a safe creek is nearby, the teacher can collect a small sample, let students draw the animals from life in a shallow white tray, and return the animals to the creek the same day. Students should not drink or taste the creek water, and everyone washes hands after handling the tray. Students can also collect their best drawings into a class field guide for the school library.