Lesson plan Grade 2 Careers & CTE
Hydrant Check Day on Saltbrook Road: A Grade 2 Careers Lesson
Second graders meet a fictional hydrant technician, bar-graph her four-day check log, and add and subtract the daily totals within 100.
Objectives
- Students will describe two things a hydrant technician does on a work route.
- Students will draw a bar graph of four days of check counts and read totals from it.
- Students will add and subtract two-digit check totals within 100.
Vocabulary
Key words: hydrant, route, log, bar graph
Teacher overview
Ms. Petrova is a hydrant technician in the town of Saltbrook, and her workday is spent making sure the fire hydrants along her route will work when a fire truck needs them. She opens each hydrant a little, watches the water, closes it again, and writes the hydrant number in her log. This lesson hands second graders four days of that log as a small data set they can bar-graph and add. A misconception worth heading off early is that a hydrant is checked once and then finished; Ms. Petrova comes back to every hydrant on a regular schedule, often once or twice a year, and she starts a new page in her log every week as she works through her route.
Keep the work physical where you can. If your school has a hydrant near the parking lot, walk the class past it before you start, so the numbers on the handout attach to something the class has stood next to.
Procedure
Opening (5 min): Ask the class who they think takes care of the fire hydrants on their street. Take three or four answers without correcting any of them. Then tell students that a person called a hydrant technician has that job, and that today they will read four days of her work log.
Meet the hydrant technician (10 min): Describe Ms. Petrova's morning in order: she loads a wrench and a log book into her truck, drives to the first hydrant, takes off a side cap, turns the nut on top with her wrench to let a little water run, watches for rust or slow flow, turns the water off, puts the cap back, and writes the number down. Ask students why she writes the number down instead of trying to remember it. Push for the idea that the town needs a record, so the next worker knows which hydrants are already done.
Model the bar graph (8 min): Draw an empty bar graph on chart paper with four labels along the bottom: Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday. Number the side from 0 to 20 by ones or twos. Fill in Monday together using the log value of 12, thinking aloud about counting up to the right line. Leave the other three bars empty for students to complete.
Student handout (15 min): Students work through the handout on their own or in pairs. Circulate and watch for two things: bars drawn to the correct height, and addition that regroups correctly when the ones column passes ten.
Closing check (7 min): Hold a thumb-up or thumb-down poll on one question read aloud: "Ms. Petrova checked 12 hydrants on Monday and 9 on Tuesday. Is 21 the right total?" If fewer than three-quarters of the class shows a thumb up, work the addition again on the board before dismissal. Then ask two students to finish this sentence out loud: "A hydrant technician helps our town because ____."
Student Handout
Read aloud: Ms. Petrova checks fire hydrants for the town of Saltbrook. Here is her log for four days.
| Day | Hydrants checked |
|---|---|
| Monday | 12 |
| Tuesday | 9 |
| Wednesday | 15 |
| Thursday | 14 |
- Draw a bar graph. Make one bar for each day. Label each bar with the day.
- How many hydrants did she check on Monday and Tuesday together?
- How many more hydrants did she check on Wednesday than on Tuesday?
- How many hydrants did she check on all four days?
- On Friday she checked 8 more hydrants. How many hydrants did she check from Monday to Friday?
- Write one sentence. Tell why the town wants every hydrant checked.
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: A bar graph with four labeled bars: Monday at 12, Tuesday at 9, Wednesday at 15, and Thursday at 14. Accept any single-unit scale as long as each bar reaches the correct height and carries its day label.
- Answer: 21 hydrants. 12 + 9 = 21.
- Answer: 6 hydrants. 15 - 9 = 6.
- Answer: 50 hydrants. 12 + 9 = 21, 21 + 15 = 36, and 36 + 14 = 50.
- Answer: 58 hydrants. 50 + 8 = 58.
- Answer: Answers will vary. Accept any reason tied to the hydrant working when it is needed, such as firefighters needing water quickly, or the town finding a broken hydrant before there is a fire.
Differentiation
Support (below grade level)
Give students a bar graph grid with the Monday bar already shaded and the side scale numbered by ones. Provide a hundred chart for items 2 through 5, and read each item aloud a second time before students begin.
Extension (above grade level)
Ask students to write a sixth question of their own using the same log, trade it with a partner, and check each other's work. Strong students can also figure out how many hydrants Ms. Petrova would check in two weeks if every week matched the four days shown.
ELL supports
Pre-teach hydrant, check, and log using a photograph of a hydrant and a page from a simple notebook. Give the sentence frame "A hydrant technician ____ every hydrant" for the oral closing, and allow item 6 to be answered to a partner before it is written.
Extensions
Ask the class to design a paper tag that Ms. Petrova could hang on a hydrant she has already checked, using a drawing plus the date. Many water utilities will send a worker to a classroom if a teacher asks, so a short visit from a real distribution crew member pairs well with this lesson.