Lesson plan Kindergarten Health & Consumer Science
Cold Tap, Warm Tap: A Kindergarten Sink Safety Lesson
A 30-minute kindergarten lesson on sink safety: naming the cold and warm taps, testing water with the back of one hand, and sorting eight sink jobs.
Objectives
- Students will name which handle at the sink brings cold water and which brings warm water.
- Students will test running water with the back of one hand before putting both hands under it.
- Students will sort eight sink jobs into cold tap jobs and warm tap jobs and count each group.
Vocabulary
Key words: cold, warm, handle, test, safe
Teacher overview
A two-handle sink asks a child to choose a handle every time they use it. This lesson teaches that choice: blue handle for drinking and for cooling a scrape, red handle only with a grown-up, and the back of one hand as the way to find out what is coming out before both hands go under. Run the lesson at the sinks your class actually uses, since that is where the routine has to hold.
The teaching note is about the hand. Children reach palm-first and grab, which is the motion that gets them burned, so the demonstration has to show the back of the hand held near the stream rather than in it, and the partner practice has to be watched rather than assumed. The test is automatic for adults, which is why it is taught here as a separate step with its own eight minutes.
Put blue tape on the cold handle and red tape on the warm handle before class, at every sink the children use, and leave the tape up for the rest of the year. If your sinks have a single mixing lever, teach left and right on the lever instead and keep the same colors.
Procedure
Opening at the sink (5 min): Gather the class where everyone can see the sink. Point at the blue tape and the red tape. Turn the cold handle and hold a paper cup under it, then pass the cup around so children feel that it is cold. Say the first rule together twice: Blue is cold, and blue is the one we drink. Explain plainly that the cold water comes right in from the pipe, while the warm water sits in a tank first, which is why the cold tap is the one for a drinking cup.
Back-of-hand demonstration (8 min): Turn the warm handle a small amount. Hold the back of one hand near the stream, not in it, and narrate what you are doing and why. Then say the second rule together twice: We test with the back of one hand. Show the wrong way once, deliberately and slowly, with both palms plunging under the stream, and ask the class what could go wrong. Finish with the third rule: A grown-up sets the warm water. Write all three rules on chart paper as you go.
Partner practice (10 min): Send children to the sink in pairs while the rest stay at the carpet, and stand at the sink to set any warm water yourself, as the third rule says. Each child names the handle they are turning, tests with the back of one hand, then washes. The partner watches and says whether the test happened. This is the formative check: mark your roster for each child who tests with the back of the hand before washing without being reminded. If fewer than half do it on their own, repeat the demonstration tomorrow before starting anything new.
Sink job sort (5 min): Hold up the eight job cards one at a time. For each, children call out cold or warm and one child says why. Place the cards in two columns on the floor, count each column with the class, and ask which column has more cards. The handwashing card goes between the two columns, because soap and scrubbing clean hands with either tap.
Rule card and closing (2 min): Each child draws the sink on a half sheet and dictates or writes one true sentence about which tap to use for a drinking cup. Read three aloud and repeat the three rules from the chart.
Student Handout
Sink job cards. Draw or print one simple picture per card. Numbered here so the answer key can be checked card by card.
- Filling a paper cup to drink at snack.
- Washing hands with soap after outdoor play.
- Filling the class watering can for the bean plants.
- Rinsing paint brushes in the art tray.
- Filling a bottle to take to the gym.
- Washing the snack table with a sponge.
- Running water on a scraped knee.
- Filling the mop bucket with the custodian.
Read aloud before the drawing: Draw our sink. Draw the blue handle and the red handle. Then tell me which one fills a cup you drink from, and I will write your words.
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: Cold tap.
Drinking water comes from the cold tap, which brings water straight in from the pipe. - Answer: Either tap.
Cold water and warm water both wash germs off when you use soap and scrub for twenty seconds. Warm water can feel more comfortable, and a grown-up sets it. - Answer: Cold tap.
Plants get cold water, and there is no reason to use warm water from the tank. - Answer: Cold tap.
Cold water rinses brushes fine, and the art sink is often a single cold tap anyway. - Answer: Cold tap.
A gym bottle is drinking water, so it follows the same rule as the snack cup. - Answer: Warm tap.
Warm water and soap clean a snack table better than cold water alone. - Answer: Cold tap.
Cool running water is what a scrape wants, and it is the safer handle for a child to reach for on their own. - Answer: Warm tap.
A mop bucket is filled with warm water, and an adult fills it, which is the point of putting the custodian in the picture.
Differentiation
Support
Stand at the sink with the child and put your hand beside theirs for the back-of-hand test for the first several days rather than describing it again. Use four cards instead of eight, two per column, and hand the child the card to place rather than asking for a call-out from the carpet. Offer a pre-drawn sink outline with two blank handles to color and caption by dictation.
Extension
Ask a confident pair to find every sink in the hallway and the art room, check whether the blue and red tape is on the right handles, and report back to the class. For the drawing, ask them to write their sentence themselves and add a second sentence beginning with because.
ELL supports
Teach the three rules as motions before any words: a flat palm for blue, both hands up and back for red, and the back of one hand held out for the test. Use the color words with the tape in hand every time rather than in the abstract. Accept the drawing caption in the home language and add one English word together while scribing.
Extensions
Send a strip of blue and red tape home in backpacks with a note asking families to mark the bathroom sink together, then ask children the next morning who found their handles already labeled. Later in the year, add a fourth rule about a sink with one lever, which most children will have met somewhere by then and can describe for the class.