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Worksheet Kindergarten Engineering & Design

A Mud Fence for the Fiddlehead Creek Building Site

A read-aloud kindergarten worksheet where students sort five fence materials into ones that stop mud and ones that let it pass, then draw a fence beside a creek.

Objectives

  1. Students will sort fence materials into ones that stop mud and ones that do not.
  2. Students will count each group and say which group has more.
  3. Students will draw a mud fence in the right place between dirt and a creek.

Vocabulary

Key words: mud, fence, stake, creek

Teacher overview

Trucks are digging a bare patch of ground beside the fictional Fiddlehead Creek, and every rain washes some of that loose dirt downhill into the water. Real crews handle this with a low fabric barrier, called a silt fence, staked along the downhill edge of the site. The choice they make about material is one kindergartners can reason through, because some things catch mud while others let it slide right by.

This page has students sort five named materials, count each group, and then place a fence in a drawing. Read every item aloud. The sorting items are the mathematics, and the drawing items are the engineering, so both halves are worth equal time in the discussion afterward.

A Mud Fence for the Fiddlehead Creek Building Site — Kindergarten Engineering & Design
Name: ____________________________ Date: ______________

Student Worksheet

Layout note: beside items 3 and 7, print a small picture of each choice named in the item, for students to circle.

Your teacher will read each item to you.

  1. Trucks dig up dirt beside the creek. Rain washes the mud into the water. Is the creek water clean or dirty now? Circle one.
  2. Fish need clean water to live in. Draw a fish in the creek.
  3. The crew has 5 things to build a fence. They are a thick cloth, a straw bale, a tight screen, an open gate, and a wide net. Circle each thing that would stop mud.
  4. Three of those 5 things stop mud. How many things let mud pass? Write the number.
  5. Which group has more, the things that stop mud or the things that let mud pass? Circle one.
  6. A fence has to stand between the dirt and the creek. Draw the creek. Draw the dirt pile. Draw a fence line between them.
  7. A fence with no stakes falls flat in the rain. Circle the fence that will stand up: one pushed into the ground with stakes, or one laid on top of the grass.
  8. Mud is heavy. It drops down and stays by the fence. Draw the mud on the dirt side of your fence.
  9. Rainwater goes through the cloth. Mud does not. Tell why the cloth works. Say it out loud.
  10. The job is done and the trucks drive away. Grass will hold the dirt now. Draw grass where the bare dirt was.

From Water for Schools (waterforschools.org). This material is in the public domain (CC0) and may be copied, edited, and shared freely.

Answer Key
  1. Answer: Dirty. Mud mixed into the creek makes the water cloudy and brown, which is what the trucks and the rain together caused.
  2. Answer: A drawing of a fish in the creek. This item sets up the reason for the fence, so accept any fish drawn in the water.
  3. Answer: The thick cloth, the straw bale, and the tight screen. Each of these has small openings or packed material that holds mud back, while an open gate and a wide net have gaps mud slides through.
  4. Answer: 2 things. Five things in all, minus the 3 that stop mud, leaves 2 that let mud pass, which are the open gate and the wide net.
  5. Answer: The things that stop mud. That group has 3 and the other group has 2, so the stopping group is bigger.
  6. Answer: A drawing with the fence line drawn between the dirt pile and the creek. Look for the fence on the creek side of the dirt, because a fence behind the dirt would catch nothing.
  7. Answer: The fence pushed into the ground with stakes. Stakes hold the cloth upright against the weight of the water and mud pushing on it.
  8. Answer: A drawing showing mud piled on the uphill side of the fence, the same side as the dirt pile. The mud settles out before the water passes through.
  9. Answer: The cloth has tiny holes. Water fits through the holes and the heavier mud does not, so the water keeps going and the mud stays behind.
  10. Answer: A drawing of grass covering the bare ground. Grass roots hold the soil in place, so once grass grows the fence is no longer needed.

Differentiation

Support (below grade level)

Bring the five materials, or pictures of them, and let these students handle each one before sorting. Give them a two-column mat labeled with a simple sketch at the top of each column so the sorting in item 3 is physical, and let them count the piles rather than the circles for items 4 and 5.

Extension (above grade level)

Ask these students to add a second fence lower down the slope and explain why a crew might use two rows on a steep hill. Have them label the drawing with the words dirt, fence, and creek, and dictate one sentence saying what would happen with no fence at all.

ELL supports

Pre-teach mud, fence, stake, and creek with real objects and a tray demonstration, tilting a cookie sheet with a spoonful of soil at the top and pouring water over it. Accept pointing at the circled materials in item 3, and allow the item 9 answer in the home language with the English word cloth added during scribing.

Extensions

Tilt a baking tray with a small pile of soil at the high end and pour a cup of water over it, first with no barrier and then with a strip of cloth or a folded paper towel staked across the middle with toothpicks. Let students compare the water that reaches the low end both times and say which run looked more like a clean creek.