Lesson plan Kindergarten Math
Two Buckets at Oatfield Park: A Kindergarten Comparing Lesson
A 30-minute kindergarten lesson where students count and compare the litter in two buckets from a pond walk, deciding which group has more, fewer, or the same.
Objectives
- Students will count the items in each of two buckets, up to twenty in a row.
- Students will match two groups one to one and say which group has more, fewer, or the same.
- Students will explain that litter near a pond can be carried into the water by rain.
Vocabulary
Key words: bucket, more, fewer, same
Teacher overview
Oatfield Park has a small pond at one end and a parking lot at the other, and rain that falls on the parking lot runs downhill toward the pond, carrying loose trash with it. Before the lesson the class fills two buckets on a short walk, one from the grass beside the pond and one from the edge of the parking lot, and then counts and compares the two groups. On the walk, keep the class well back from the water's edge and out of the path of cars, have an adult wearing gloves pick up each item while students point to it, leave broken glass and anything sharp alone, and have students wash their hands afterward. If the weather or the site does not allow a walk, the teacher fills the two buckets in advance with clean classroom objects. The misconception this lesson is built to correct is the belief that the group taking up more space has more objects, so a spread-out row of three large lids looks like more than a tight cluster of nine small caps. Matching the two groups item by item settles the question by counting rather than by appearance.
Read all directions aloud, and have students touch each object as they count it.
Procedure
Hook (5 min): Set the two buckets in front of the class without opening them. Explain that rain running off a parking lot does not soak into the pavement, so it flows downhill and carries loose trash into the pond at the low end of the park. Ask which bucket students think will hold more, and record two or three guesses.
Direct instruction (8 min): Empty one bucket onto a paper strip and lay the items out in a single row, counting them aloud with the class while touching each one. Empty the second bucket onto the second strip in a row directly underneath, aligned item to item. Point out the pairs, then point out the items in the longer row that have no partner. Say the comparison sentence plainly: the first row has more, the second row has fewer.
Guided practice (9 min): Give each group of four students two small sets of objects, ten or fewer in each set, and two paper strips. Groups lay out both sets in matched rows, count each row, and report which row has more. Then rearrange one row into a scattered pile and ask the group to count it again, so students see that spreading the objects out or bunching them together does not change how many there are. Circulate and ask one student per group, "Did the number change when we moved them?"
Independent practice (5 min): Read the Student Handout aloud, one question at a time. Students may answer with objects, fingers, or by pointing to a drawn row.
Closure and formative check (3 min): Show the class two rows on the board, one with 6 drawn caps and one with 6 drawn caps spread far apart. Ask students to show a thumb up if the rows are equal. If more than a few thumbs point down, match the two rows with lines drawn between the pairs before the class leaves the carpet.
Student Handout
- Bucket A holds 7 caps. Bucket B holds 4 caps. Which bucket has more caps?
- Bucket A holds 7 caps. Bucket B holds 4 caps. How many more caps are in Bucket A?
- One row has 5 straws. The other row has 5 straws. Are the two rows equal?
- One bag holds 6 wrappers. The other bag holds 8 wrappers. Which bag has fewer wrappers?
- A row of 3 big lids is long. A row of 9 small caps is short. Which row has more?
- Bucket A holds 6 straws. Bucket B holds 6 straws. Which bucket has more straws?
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: Bucket A. Seven caps matched against four caps leaves three caps in Bucket A with no partner, so Bucket A has more.
- Answer: 3 caps. Match the 4 caps in Bucket B to 4 of the caps in Bucket A. Count the caps left over in Bucket A: 1, 2, 3.
- Answer: Yes, the rows are equal. Every straw in one row has exactly one partner in the other row, and none are left over.
- Answer: The bag with 6 wrappers. Matching 6 against 8 leaves two wrappers with no partner in the other bag, so the group of 6 is the smaller group.
- Answer: The row of 9 small caps. Length does not tell how many. Counting gives 3 in the long row and 9 in the short row, and 9 is more than 3.
- Answer: Neither bucket. Both hold 6 straws, so the two groups are the same.
Differentiation
Support
Give these students a two-row grid so each object drops into its own square directly across from its partner, which removes the need to line objects up by eye. Start them with groups of no more than five before moving to larger sets.
Extension
Ask confident students to arrange one group in a circle and the other in a line and then decide which has more without rearranging either one, explaining how they know. Have them record their two counts and circle the larger number.
ELL supports
Pre-teach more, fewer, and same with three pairs of object sets on the carpet and a hand gesture for each word. Offer the sentence frames "This bucket has more" and "The two rows are the same," and accept pointing at the correct row as a full answer.
Extensions
Repeat the count a week after the class picks up the parking lot edge, and compare the new bucket with the first one to see whether the group is smaller. Post both matched rows on butcher paper in the hallway so other classes can see the comparison, and invite students to explain what rain does to the trash that stays on the pavement.