Lesson plan Kindergarten Math

Ten Pipes in a Bundle: Counting by Tens with the Quilby Water Crew

A 30-minute kindergarten lesson in which students count bundles of ten pipe pieces by tens to 100 as a town water crew loads its repair truck.

Grade: Kindergarten
Subject: Math
Material: Lesson plan
Time: 30 min
Prep: Low prep
Materials: Rubber-banded bundles of 10 craft sticks or cut drinking straws, ten for the teacher and six for each pair, A few loose craft sticks or straw pieces, A shallow box or bin to stand in for the crew truck, plus a small box for each pair, A photo or drawing of a water pipe being lowered into a street trench, Chart paper and a marker

Standards

K.CC.A.1 Common Core Math

Count to 100 by ones and by tens.

How this material aligns: Students count aloud by tens to 100 as each rubber-banded bundle of ten pipe pieces is loaded onto the water crew's truck.

All materials for K.CC.A.1 →

K.CC.B.4 Common Core Math

Understand the relationship between numbers and quantities; connect counting to cardinality: a. When counting objects, say the number names in the standard order, pairing each object with one and only one number name and each number name with one and only one object. b. Understand that the last number name said tells the number of objects counted. The number of objects is the same regardless of their arrangement or the order in which they were counted. c. Understand that each successive number name refers to a quantity that is one larger.

How this material aligns: In the direct instruction and again whenever a pair miscounts, students count the ten pieces inside one bundle by ones, touching each piece as they say one number name, and state that the last number said tells how many pieces the bundle holds.

All materials for K.CC.B.4 →

Download Word file

This material is in the public domain (CC0) and may be copied, edited, and shared freely, without attribution. Updated 2026-09-03.

Objectives

Students will count by tens to 100 while loading bundles of ten pipe pieces.
Students will state how many pipe pieces are in a stack of bundles without counting each piece by ones.
Students will explain that a water crew carries pipe to fix the line that brings water to houses.

Vocabulary

Key words: pipe, bundle, crew, ten

Teacher overview

In the town of Quilby, the water crew keeps short pieces of pipe on its truck so that a broken water line can be patched the same day it is reported. The crew ties the pieces into bundles of ten because counting ten bundles is faster than counting a hundred loose pieces, and this lesson borrows that habit to give kindergartners a concrete reason to count by tens. A misconception that shows up almost immediately is that children recite "ten, twenty, thirty" as a rhyme without connecting each word to a group of ten objects, so they will point at a single bundle and call it "one." The procedure below keeps a real bundle in each child's hands at the moment the number word is said, so that every number in the chant is attached to a group of ten objects.

Every direction in this lesson is meant to be read aloud, since kindergartners are not yet reading independently.

Procedure

Hook (5 min): Show the picture of the pipe going into the street trench. Explain that pipes under the street carry water to every sink and drinking fountain in town, and that when one cracks, the Quilby water crew drives out with pipe pieces to patch it. Hold up a single loose stick and ask how long it would take to count a truckload one piece at a time.

Direct instruction (8 min): Hold up one rubber-banded bundle. Count its ten pieces aloud with the class, slowly, touching each piece. Snap the band back on and say, "This whole bundle is ten." Place it in the box and say "ten." Add a second bundle and say "twenty." Continue to fifty, writing 10, 20, 30, 40, 50 on the chart paper as you go. Then take the bundles out and rebuild the stack with the class chanting along.

Guided practice (9 min): Give each pair of students three to six bundles. Ask pairs to load their bundles into a shared box one at a time, saying the count-by-ten number out loud with each one. Circulate and ask two or three pairs, "How many pipe pieces are in your box?" A pair that answers with the number of bundles rather than the number of pieces should open one bundle and recount it by ones before trying again.

Independent practice (5 min): Read the Student Handout questions aloud, one at a time, while students answer with bundles, fingers, or a drawing. Pause after each question long enough for every student to build the stack before anyone answers.

Closure and formative check (3 min): Hold up four bundles and ask the whole class to show a thumb up if the stack holds forty pieces and a thumb down if it does not. If fewer than three-quarters of the class shows a thumb up, reopen one bundle and recount it by ones with the group before ending the lesson.

Ten Pipes in a Bundle: Counting by Tens with the Quilby Water Crew — Kindergarten Math

Name: ____________________________ Date: ______________

Student Handout

The crew stacks 3 bundles on the truck. Each bundle has 10 pipe pieces. Count by tens. How many pipe pieces?
The crew stacks 5 bundles. Each bundle has 10 pipe pieces. Count by tens. How many pipe pieces?
Count out loud by tens from 10 all the way to 100. What is the last number you say?
The truck holds 6 bundles. Each bundle has 10 pipe pieces. Count by tens. How many pipe pieces?
The crew has 1 bundle of 10 pipe pieces and 4 loose pieces. Count them all. How many pipe pieces?
The crew starts with 4 bundles of 10 pipe pieces. The crew uses up 1 whole bundle. How many pipe pieces are left?

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: 30 pipe pieces. Count one number for each bundle: 10, 20, 30. Three bundles of ten hold thirty pieces.
Answer: 50 pipe pieces. Count 10, 20, 30, 40, 50, saying one number as each bundle goes on the truck.
Answer: 100. The count runs 10, 20, 30, 40, 50, 60, 70, 80, 90, 100, and the last number said names the whole amount.
Answer: 60 pipe pieces. Count 10, 20, 30, 40, 50, 60 for the six bundles.
Answer: 14 pipe pieces. Start at 10 for the full bundle, then count on by ones: 11, 12, 13, 14.
Answer: 30 pipe pieces. Four bundles are 10, 20, 30, 40. Taking away one whole bundle leaves 10, 20, 30.

Differentiation

Support

Give these students bundles that are already opened into two groups of five, and count by fives with them first so the group of ten is built in front of them rather than hidden under a rubber band. Let them keep one open bundle on the desk as a reference while the rest of the class works with sealed bundles.

Extension

Ask confident students to load seven bundles and then add three loose pieces, and to say the total as seventy-three by counting the bundles by tens and then counting on by ones. Have them draw the stack and label it with the number.

ELL supports

Pre-teach pipe, bundle, and crew with the objects themselves: a length of pipe or a rolled paper tube, a rubber-banded group of sticks, and a photograph of workers in the trench. Offer the sentence frame "I have ___ bundles. That is ___ pieces," and accept a student holding up the correct stack instead of speaking the sentence.

Extensions

Ask the school custodian or a visiting utility worker to bring in a short cut section of real water pipe so students can hold it, describe how heavy it is, and compare it to the craft-stick model they counted. Later in the week, set out a bin of loose pieces at a math station and ask students to bundle them into tens themselves before counting, which shifts the work from counting a prepared set to making the groups of ten.