Worksheet Kindergarten Science
Cold Morning at Mistlebrook School: A Kindergarten Ice Worksheet
A kindergarten worksheet where students sort six morning picture cards from a fictional school weather chart into cold and warm piles, count each pile, and compare them.
Objectives
- Students will sort six morning pictures into a cold pile and a warm pile.
- Students will count each pile and tell whether the piles are the same or different.
- Students will describe what happens to a puddle on a cold morning and on a warm afternoon.
Vocabulary
Key words: cold, warm, ice, frost, melt, chart
Teacher overview
Mistlebrook School is a fictional elementary school whose kindergarten class keeps a weather chart by the door and checks the same puddle on the walkway every morning. On warm mornings the puddle is wet water the class can splash a finger in, and on cold mornings the same puddle is hard ice and the grass beside it is white with frost. This worksheet gives students six morning pictures to sort into a cold pile and a warm pile, then asks them to count each pile and read two counts off the class chart. Put two pictures of the same puddle, one wet and one frozen, at the top of the sheet for item 1. Print the six pictures as cut-apart cards along the bottom of the sheet, and read every item aloud, since the work is sorting, counting, and describing rather than independent reading.
The pattern students are being asked to notice is that the same puddle looks different on different mornings, and that which one they see depends on how cold the air is. That connection between a daily weather observation and a change in the water outside the door is the science this sheet is built to practice.
Student Worksheet
- Look at the two pictures of the same puddle. One puddle is wet. One puddle is hard ice. Which one is the cold morning?
- Here are 6 cards. Card A shows frost on the grass. Card B shows rain in a puddle. Card C shows ice on the slide. Card D shows wet swings that drip. Card E shows an icicle on the roof. Card F shows a puddle with no ice. Put each card in a cold pile or a warm pile. Count the cold pile. How many cards?
- Count the warm pile. How many cards?
- Which pile has more cards, the cold pile or the warm pile, or are the two piles the same?
- The class chart shows 4 cold mornings. It shows 2 warm mornings. Which kind of morning came more?
- The chart shows 4 cold mornings and 2 warm mornings. Count all the mornings. How many mornings in all?
- The sun warms the walkway at noon. What happens to the ice?
- Tell one thing you see outside on a cold morning.
- Why does the class look at the sky and the puddle each day?
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: The picture with hard ice. Water in the puddle turns to ice when the air outside is cold enough, so the frozen puddle is the cold morning.
- Answer: 3 cards. Cards A, C and E show frost, ice on the slide, and an icicle, and all three belong in the cold pile.
- Answer: 3 cards. Cards B, D and F show rain, dripping wet swings, and a puddle with no ice, and all three belong in the warm pile.
- Answer: The piles are the same. Matching the cold cards against the warm cards one for one leaves no card without a partner, so neither pile has more.
- Answer: Cold mornings. Four cold mornings compared with two warm mornings makes the cold group greater, and students may match them one for one to show the two extra cold days.
- Answer: 6 mornings. Counting on from the 4 cold mornings through the 2 warm mornings reaches 6 in all.
- Answer: It melts back into water. Accept any answer that says the ice turns to water, goes soft, drips, or makes a puddle again.
- Answer: Accept any true cold-morning observation the student can name, such as frost on the grass, ice on a puddle, breath that looks like fog, or an icicle hanging from a roof. Redirect a warm-morning answer with the prompt "Is that something you see when it is cold?"
- Answer: To see what the weather did and find the pattern. Accept any answer that says the class is watching, checking, or keeping track of the weather day after day.
Differentiation
Support
Hand these students the six cut-apart cards and two labeled hoops or trays, one marked with a snowflake drawing and one marked with a sun drawing, so the sort in item 2 is a physical move rather than a paper task. For item 5, give them four blue cubes and two yellow cubes to line up and match before they answer.
Extension
Ask these students to add two more cards of their own to the sort, drawing one cold morning and one warm morning, and then answer items 2, 3 and 4 again for the new eight-card set. Have them say out loud which pile has more now and how they know.
ELL supports
Pre-teach cold, warm, ice, frost, and melt by passing an ice cube and a cup of warm water down the row so the words attach to something students have just touched. Accept pointing at a pile or a picture as a full answer for items 1 through 5, and provide the sentence frame "The ice ___" with the words melts and stays hard written beside small drawings.
Extensions
Set a shallow pan of water outside the classroom door overnight for a week and have the class check it each morning, marking the chart with a snowflake or a sun and predicting the next day's result. Compare the class chart with the school's morning temperature reading over the same week so students can pair each ice morning with a colder number on the thermometer.