Lesson plan Kindergarten Engineering & Design
A Splash Guard for the Bayberry School Water Fountain
A 35-minute kindergarten design lesson in which students name a splashing hallway fountain problem, then fold and test a paper guard that keeps the floor dry.
Objectives
- Students will state the fountain splash problem in their own words.
- Students will draw a splash guard and tell how its shape will help.
- Students will fold a paper guard and test it with a spoonful of water.
Vocabulary
Key words: design, problem, guard, test
Teacher overview
A drinking fountain that sprays past its basin leaves a wet floor, and that is a problem kindergartners can see and name without an adult explaining it first. This lesson uses a fictional hallway fountain at Bayberry School, modeled on a desk with a cup and a spoon, so every child watches the water land in the wrong place and then does something about it.
The order of the segments matters more here than the materials do. Hold the card stock back until the class has said the problem out loud in one shared sentence, because students who receive materials first tend to build decorations rather than guards. Once the sentence is on the board, the folding work stays pointed at it.
Two ideas carry the lesson. The first is that a shape can do a job, which students meet the moment a flat card fails and a bent card works. The second is that water spilled on the floor was treated and pumped to the building so people could drink it, which links the design work to the pipes that bring water into the school.
Procedure
Notice the problem (5 min): Set the dish tub on a desk with a cup standing inside it. Dip a spoon in water and flick it across the rim so drops land outside the tub. Ask students to point at every place a drop landed. Say nothing about guards yet.
Name the problem together (5 min): Ask what the wet floor could do to someone walking by. Take three or four answers, then build one sentence the class repeats twice and you write on the board: Water jumps out of the fountain and lands on the floor, and we want it to stay inside. This sentence is the formative check. If more than a few students cannot repeat the second half of it, run the spoon demonstration once more before moving on.
Draw the guard (8 min): Hand out the design page. Each student draws a shape that would stop the drops. Circulate and ask one question at each table: "Where does the water hit your shape, and where does it go next?" Scribe short labels for students who dictate. Accept flat pieces, curved pieces, and walls with a lip.
Build and test (12 min): Give each student one index card. Show three folds on the board and let students choose: a straight wall, a wall with a bent lip at the top, and a card curved into a half tube. Students tape their guard to the rim of the tub, take one turn flicking a spoonful of water at it, and watch where the drops go. Dry the pan between turns, and wipe up any drops on the floor right away so no one slips.
Share and close (5 min): Gather at the tub. Ask two students with different shapes to hold theirs up and say what the water did. Close by repeating the class problem sentence and adding the result: the shape with the bent lip sent the most water back into the basin.
Student Handout
Read each line aloud. Students draw and dictate.
- Draw the fountain. Draw the drops that land on the floor.
- Draw a guard that keeps the drops in. Make its shape do the job.
- Point to your guard. Tell a grown-up where the water goes when it hits it.
From Water for Schools (waterforschools.org). This material is in the public domain (CC0) and may be copied, edited, and shared freely.
Differentiation
Support (below grade level)
Pre-fold both card shapes before class so these students test rather than build, and give them a two-picture choice card, a straight wall and a bent lip, to circle before they test. Ask them to describe the result with one word, wet or dry, rather than a sentence.
Extension (above grade level)
Ask these students to fold a guard that protects two sides of the tub at once and to explain, using the word shape, why one folded card can do two jobs. Have them test their guard twice and say whether the second test matched the first.
ELL supports
Pre-teach guard, drop, fold, and dry with the physical motions the whole class performs together, such as cupping two hands to make a guard shape. Accept pointing and single words during the share segment, and pair each student with a partner who narrates the test aloud while they flick the water.
Extensions
Walk to the real hallway fountain with clipboards and check whether the floor around it is wet or dry at three different times of day. If a custodian or a building maintenance worker is willing, ask them to tell the class in one or two sentences what they do when a fountain leaks, and what tool they carry to fix it.