Lesson plan Grade 1 Health & Consumer Science
A Bottle Filler for Room 6 at Wickerly Street School
A 30-minute grade 1 health lesson where students sort school water spots into safe and not-for-drinking, then write an opinion about the best filling spot.
Objectives
- Students will name two places at school where water is safe to drink.
- Students will state an opinion about the best spot to fill a bottle and give one reason.
- Students will describe one way people made drinking water better at a school.
Vocabulary
Key words: fountain, bottle filler, safe, pipe
Teacher overview
Wickerly Street School is a made-up school with three places a child might fill a water bottle: the hallway fountain, a new bottle filler outside the gym, and the sink in the art room. It also has a garden hose and a bathroom sink, neither of which is meant for drinking. This lesson has first graders sort those spots, learn the plain reason behind the sorting, and then write one opinion sentence with a reason, which is the grade's opinion-writing task. Keep the tone factual rather than alarming; the goal is that children know which taps are for drinking and who to ask when they are unsure.
Procedure
Opening (5 min). Hold up a reusable water bottle. Ask: "Where do you fill your bottle at school?" Take four or five answers and write each spot on a sticky note as students name it. Add any spots they miss, including the hose outside and the bathroom sink.
Sorting the spots (8 min). Label the chart paper with two headings, Safe to drink and Not for drinking. Read each sticky note aloud and let the class vote with thumbs. Place each note in a column. Explain the reason plainly as you go: fountains and bottle fillers are checked and cleaned by grown-ups whose job is keeping drinking water safe, while a hose sits in the sun and a bathroom sink is used for washing. If students disagree about the art room sink, put it in the middle and tell them the honest answer, which is that they should ask their teacher about that one.
Who checks it (9 min). Tell the class that a water worker checks the drinking water for the school and the town, and that a plumber or a custodian fixes the pipes and the fountains when they break. Both jobs keep children healthy, and both are jobs a person can grow up to do. Ask: "What would happen if nobody checked?" Take three answers. Then tell them that adding the bottle filler outside the gym was something people decided to do to make the school better, and ask what else they would add.
Opinion drawing (5 min). Each student draws the spot they think Room 6 should use for filling bottles before recess. Under the drawing they write or dictate one sentence in this shape: "I think we should fill our bottles at the ____ because ____."
Formative check and close (3 min). Read four captions aloud without names. For each, ask the class to show a thumbs up if they heard a reason. If fewer than about half the captions include a reason, plan a five-minute reason-only mini-lesson the next day. Close by having the class point to the two spots on the chart that are safe to drink.
Student Handout
Read aloud: Draw the spot you think Room 6 should use to fill water bottles.
Then finish this sentence under your drawing.
I think we should fill our bottles at the ____ because ____.
Word bank for the first blank: fountain, bottle filler.
Word bank for the reason: it is clean, it is close, the line is short, a grown-up checks 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)
Give these students two pre-drawn outlines, one of a fountain and one of a bottle filler, so the drawing step is a coloring and labeling task. Offer the reason word bank as picture cards they can point to before the caption is scribed.
Extension (above grade level)
Ask these students to add a second sentence naming one spot they think Room 6 should not use and why. They can also draw a sign for the hose that tells other children what the hose is for.
ELL supports
Pre-teach fountain, filler, safe, and check by walking to each real spot in the building before the lesson and pointing. Keep the caption frame posted and unchanged so the only new words a student supplies are the two blanks, and accept the reason in the home language with one English word added during scribing.
Extensions
Write a short thank-you note as a class to the custodian or the water worker who keeps the fountains running, and walk it to the office together. If your utility offers school visits, ask whether a water worker can come and answer the question "how do you know our water is clean?" so that students hear the answer from someone who does the work.