Worksheet Kindergarten Art & Music
No-Words Signs for Wagtail Pond: A Picture Sign Design Page
Kindergartners compare pairs of pond signs to find the one that works with no words, learn the red no symbol, and draw a picture-only no-litter sign for a pond.
Objectives
- Students will choose the sign that shows its message with one large, simple picture instead of words or clutter.
- Students will use a red circle and slash to show the meaning no on a sign.
- Students will draw a picture-only sign that tells people to keep trash out of a pond.
Vocabulary
Key words: sign, symbol, picture, pond, trash, path
Teacher overview
Wagtail Pond is a fictional town pond with a walking path around it. Cups, wrappers, and bags keep turning up along the edge of the water, and the town wants signs on the path that remind people to keep litter out of the pond. Many of the people who walk there, including young children and visitors who read another language, cannot read an English sign, so the town has asked for signs that work with no words at all. That is a genuine design problem, and kindergartners are well placed to judge it, since most of them read pictures well before they read print.
The page is read aloud from start to finish. Items 1, 2, 3, and 6 each describe two signs side by side, labeled with letters, and the child circles or points to one. Print the page with each pair drawn as the item describes it; plain line drawings are enough. Item 4 needs a large outline of a circle with a slash through it, left uncolored, and item 5 shows a cup drawn inside that same symbol. Item 9 is an empty square about the size of a child's hand, spread wide, for the child's own sign. Item 10 is spoken or dictated.
Two misconceptions are worth teaching against directly. The first is about design: children often believe a sign gets better as it holds more, with more pictures, more colors, and more words. A sign that someone sees for a moment while walking along a path needs one idea, drawn large. Items 2 and 3 are built to show this, so pause after each and ask the class what made the chosen sign easier. The second misconception is about the pollution itself. Children tend to think that litter dropped on the grass stays where it lands, when wind and rain carry it downhill into the water. Item 8 raises this, and it explains why the signs belong on the path and not only at the water's edge.
The red circle with a slash through it appears on many public signs, and children may recognize it without knowing what it means. Teach it before item 4 by drawing it on the board around a simple object, and explain that the picture goes inside the circle and the line across it means no, or do not.
Student Worksheet
Read each item out loud. Point to each sign as you read.
- Sign A has small words. Sign B has a big picture of a cup going into a trash can. Pretend you cannot read the words. Which sign tells you what to do?
- Sign C shows one thing. It is a cup going into a trash can. Sign D shows a cup, a duck, a tree, a sun, a boat, and a frog. Which sign can you read fast?
- Sign E has a tiny picture in the middle. Sign F has a big picture that fills the sign. You are far away on the path. Which sign can you see?
- A red circle with a line across it means no. Color the circle and the line red.
- Sign G has a cup inside the red circle and line. What does Sign G tell you?
- Sign H shows a hand that drops a cup in the pond. Sign J shows a hand that puts a cup in a trash can. Which sign shows the right thing to do?
- People need to see the sign. Should it go by the path, or in the shed?
- The wind blows a bag off the grass. The grass is next to the pond. Where can the bag end up?
- Draw your own sign in the box. Use no words. Show how to keep trash out of the pond.
- Look at all the signs on this page. Which one would you put up at Wagtail Pond? 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
- Answer: Sign B.
Sign B shows the action as a picture, so a child who cannot read yet, or a visitor who reads a different language, can still follow it. Sign A only works for readers. - Answer: Sign C.
Sign C has one idea and nothing competing with it. Sign D has six small pictures, and a person walking by cannot tell which one is the message. - Answer: Sign F.
A picture that fills the sign can be seen from farther away on the path. A tiny picture in the middle of a large sign is lost at a distance. - Answer: A red circle with a red line across it.
Accept any page where both the circle and the slash are colored red. Check this item before the child moves on, since item 5 depends on the symbol. - Answer: Do not drop cups here.
Accept "no cups," "no trash," or "do not throw cups in the pond." The cup inside the red circle and line means the thing shown is not allowed. - Answer: Sign J.
Sign J shows the right action, a cup going into the trash can. Sign H shows the wrong action with no red circle and line, so it could be read as telling people to throw cups in the pond. - Answer: By the path.
A sign only works where people will see it, and the path is where people walk and where litter gets dropped. - Answer: In the pond.
Accept "in the water." Litter on the grass does not stay put, because wind and rain move it downhill into the pond. - Answer: Accept any wordless sign that shows one clear idea.
Strong examples include a large cup going into a trash can, or a cup or bag inside the red circle and line. Look for a picture that fills most of the box. A sign crowded with many small pictures meets the item but is a good moment to point back to item 2. - Answer: Accept any sign with a reason about how it looks.
Examples are "Sign F, because the picture is big" or "my sign, because it has the red no circle." A child who chooses Sign A, D, E, or H should be asked the item that sign came from (item 1, 2, 3, or 6) again and allowed to change the answer.
Differentiation
Support
Cover one sign in each pair with a sticky note and reveal it only after the child has described the first sign in their own words, so the comparison happens one picture at a time. For item 9, offer a cut-out paper cup and a small trash-can shape that the child can glue and then color, which keeps the focus on the size and placement of the picture rather than on drawing skill.
Extension
Ask the child to make a second sign on the back of the page for a different pond problem, such as feeding bread to the ducks, using the same red circle and line. Then ask which of their two signs is easier to read from across the room and why, and have them hold both up at the far wall to test the answer.
ELL supports
This page is designed to be answered without English reading, which makes it well suited to newcomers. Pre-teach sign, pond, trash, and path with real objects and a photo of a path, and let children answer items 1, 2, 3, 6, and 7 by pointing. Accept item 10 in the home language, and restate the reason in English while pointing to the part of the sign the child named.
Extensions
Walk the school grounds with clipboards and look for real signs that use pictures instead of words, such as a restroom sign, an exit sign, or a no-running sign by a pool gate. Ask children to sort them into signs with words and signs with only pictures. Post the class's pond signs at child height along a hallway and invite another class to walk past them and say which ones they could read quickly.