Worksheet Kindergarten Math
Fire Hydrants on Birch Street: A Kindergarten Counting Worksheet
A kindergarten worksheet where students count fire hydrants along a street, solve addition and subtraction stories about two streets, and count out a given number.
Objectives
- Students will count a group of fire hydrants and know the count stays the same no matter how they are arranged.
- Students will solve addition and subtraction word problems within 10 about fire hydrants.
- Students will draw or mark out an exact number of pictures when given a number.
Vocabulary
Key words: hydrant, street, count, in all
Teacher overview
Fire hydrants sit along many streets, connected underground to the pipes that bring water to homes. This worksheet uses two pretend streets, Birch Street and Oak Street, as the setting for every item, so students count, add, subtract, and count out numbers within one coherent scene. Read each item aloud and let students point to or draw their answers if writing numerals independently is still difficult.
A worked example for the teacher to model first: draw 3 hydrant shapes in a row and count them together, 1, 2, 3. Then mix up the same 3 shapes and count again, showing that the count of 3 does not change just because the shapes moved.
Print the page with 5 hydrants in a row beside item 1, the same 5 hydrants scattered beside item 2, a street map with 10 empty spots beside item 6, and an empty drawing box beside items 7 and 8.
Student Worksheet
- Birch Street has 5 hydrants in a row. Count them. How many hydrants?
- Look at the same 5 hydrants mixed up. Count again. How many hydrants?
- Did the count change? Why or why not?
- Oak Street has 3 hydrants. Birch Street has 5 hydrants. How many in all?
- A truck checks 2 hydrants on Monday. It checks 3 more on Tuesday. How many in all?
- There are 10 spots on the map. Color 6 spots to show hydrants. How many spots are left?
- Draw exactly 4 hydrants in the box.
- A worker needs 7 caps from a bin. Draw or mark 7 caps.
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: 5 hydrants. Counting the row one at a time, 1 through 5, gives a total of 5.
- Answer: 5 hydrants. Counting the same shapes mixed up still gives 5.
- Answer: No, the count did not change. Moving the same 5 hydrants into a new arrangement does not add or take away any hydrants, so counting them again still gives 5.
- Answer: 8 hydrants. Oak Street's 3 hydrants plus Birch Street's 5 hydrants is 3 + 5 = 8 hydrants together.
- Answer: 5 hydrants. Monday's 2 hydrants plus Tuesday's 3 hydrants is 2 + 3 = 5 hydrants checked in all.
- Answer: 4 spots. Out of 10 spots, coloring 6 of them leaves 10 − 6 = 4 spots with no hydrant.
- Answer: 4 hydrants. Four hydrant drawings match the number asked for.
- Answer: 7 caps. Seven hydrant-cap marks match the number asked for.
Differentiation
Support
For items 1 through 6, provide physical counters that students can move onto a printed copy of the street map instead of counting from the page alone. For items 7 and 8, provide a pre-drawn ten-frame so students place one mark per box.
Extension
Ask students to make up a new hydrant word problem using two numbers that add up to 10, trade it with a partner, and solve the partner's problem using drawings.
ELL supports
Pre-teach hydrant, street, and in all using a labeled picture of a fire hydrant on a sidewalk, pointing to each part as the word is introduced. Allow students to respond to item 3 with a gesture (a flat hand moved side to side for "no change") alongside a simple sentence frame: "The count stayed the same because ___."
Extensions
Walk near the school with enough adults to supervise the group, if a hydrant is visible from the sidewalk, and let students point out its parts and count how many hydrants they can spot on the way back to class. Pair this worksheet with a short conversation about who checks hydrants and keeps them working, connecting the counting practice to a real job.