Classroom activity Kindergarten Careers & CTE
From the Lake to Our Tap: A Ferrywood Water Order Game
A 30-minute kindergarten careers activity where students hold eight picture cards and line themselves up in the order water travels from lake to school tap.
Objectives
- Students will place eight steps of the water's trip in the correct order.
- Students will name the worker or machine that helps at each step.
- Students will retell the water's trip using the words first, next, and last.
Vocabulary
Key words: lake, filter, tank
Teacher overview
Water arrives at a school tap after passing through several buildings and several people's hands. In this activity eight students each hold one picture card and arrange themselves along a taped line in the order the water travels through the invented town of Ferrywood, from rain on the hills to the tap in the hallway. Order is the content here, and the class works it out by moving people along the line: the tester cannot check the water before the filter has cleaned it, and standing in the wrong place makes that visible.
Activity Directions
Set up (4 min). Copy and cut the eight cards from the Student Handout. Lay a long strip of masking tape across an open floor and mark one end with the word Lake and the other end with the word Tap. Draw the same two words at either end of a sheet of chart paper where the class can see it.
Hand out the cards (3 min). Choose eight students and give each one card. Read every card aloud to the whole class, twice, while its holder holds it up. The rest of the class is the crew that will tell the eight where to stand.
Build the line (10 min). Ask, "Which card comes first, before anything else happens?" Take answers from the seated students and let the class send card holders to the tape one at a time. Do not correct a placement right away. When all eight are standing, walk the line from the Lake end and read each card in place, then ask, "Does anything need to move?" Let the class fix the order themselves before you confirm it.
Walk the line (5 min). Have the eight card holders stay put while the seated students walk slowly along the tape from Lake to Tap, saying each card aloud as they pass it. Then swap: eight new students take the cards and stand in place, and the first eight card holders walk the line.
Retell and record (5 min). Gather at the chart paper. Ask three students to retell the trip using the words first, next, and last, and write their sentences on the chart. Ask one more student to say what surprised them about the trip and add that sentence too.
Debrief and end (3 min). The activity ends after the retelling. Ask two questions. First: "Which people had a job somewhere on this line?" Second: "What would happen at our tap if the person at card 6 did not come to work?" Take three or four answers before collecting the cards.
Student Handout
Copy this page and cut the cards apart. The cards are mixed up on purpose. The teacher reads each card aloud twice. Then the class puts them in order.
- The water goes down through a bed of sand. Where does this card go in the line?
- The water comes out of the tap at Ferrywood School. Where does this card go in the line?
- Rain falls on the hills and runs into Ferrywood Lake. Where does this card go in the line?
- A pump pushes the clean water up into the tall tank. Where does this card go in the line?
- The water sits in a big tank so the dirt can sink. Where does this card go in the line?
- A tester fills a jar and checks that the water is clean. Where does this card go in the line?
- The water runs down through pipes under the streets. Where does this card go in the line?
- A pump pulls lake water through a big pipe to the water plant. Where does this card go in the line?
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: Fourth. The sand bed catches the small bits of dirt that did not sink in the tank, so it comes after the sinking step.
- Answer: Eighth. The tap at the school is the end of the whole trip.
- Answer: First. Rain filling the lake is where the town's water starts, before any machine touches it.
- Answer: Sixth. Water is only pumped up into the tall tank after the tester says it is clean.
- Answer: Third. The water rests in the tank at the plant so heavy dirt sinks, which happens right after it arrives from the lake.
- Answer: Fifth. The tester checks the water after the sand filter and before it goes out to the town.
- Answer: Seventh. Water flows down out of the tall tank into the street pipes on its way to buildings.
- Answer: Second. The pump moves lake water to the plant, which is the first thing a worker does after the rain fills the lake.
Differentiation
Support (below grade level)
Use only cards 3, 8, 6, and 2 for a four-step line, and hand those four cards to students who need the movement. Tape a small picture on each card so the step can be recognized without the words. Let a partner stand with each card holder and place the card together.
Extension (above grade level)
Ask these students to add a ninth card of their own, draw it, and argue where it belongs in the line. Then ask them to say which two cards could not swap places and give one reason, which pushes the ordering from memory toward cause and effect.
ELL supports
Draw a simple picture on every card before you cut them: a cloud, a pump, a tank, a pile of sand, a jar, a tall tower, a pipe, a faucet. Point to the picture each time you read the card. Allow card holders to be placed by a partner who can explain the card in the home language, and accept the retelling in three gestures along the line rather than in sentences.
Extensions
Photograph the finished line and post it in the hallway with the chart paper sentences beside it, then let the class add the school's own tap location to the last card. If your utility publishes a simple diagram of its own system, compare it with the class line and ask students to find one step Ferrywood has that their town does not, or the reverse.