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Worksheet Kindergarten Science

Cobbin Creek Rises at Thrushfield: A Kindergarten Storm Worksheet

A kindergarten worksheet on a fictional town where students compare Cobbin Creek before and after a day of rain and work out where all that water came from.

Objectives

  1. Students will compare two pictures of the same creek and tell which one shows higher water.
  2. Students will trace where rain that falls on a roof, a street, and a yard ends up.
  3. Students will explain why a creek keeps rising after the rain has stopped.
  4. Students will ask a park crew a question about getting ready for a big storm.

Vocabulary

Key words: creek, bridge, downhill, rise, forecast, crew

Teacher overview

Thrushfield is a fictional town, and Cobbin Creek runs along the low edge of its park. This worksheet uses one day of heavy rain, forecast a day in advance, to give kindergartners a change to explain rather than a set of objects to count. Print the page with two pictures of the same footbridge, one from a dry day with the water well below the deck and one from the evening after the rain with the water almost touching it, and print beside them a simple hillside drawing showing a house roof, a sloping street, a grassy yard, and the creek at the bottom of the slope. Read every item aloud and let students answer by pointing, tracing, drawing, or speaking.

The misconception this worksheet addresses is that a creek rises only from the rain that lands directly on its surface. Items 3 through 6 are where that idea gets tested against the hillside drawing, because roof water, street water, and yard water all arrive at the same low place, and water that fell on the far side of the town of Thrushfield is still traveling downhill hours after the sky clears. That travel time is also the reason the Thrushfield Water Works and the park crew act on a forecast the day before the storm instead of waiting to watch the creek.

Cobbin Creek Rises at Thrushfield: A Kindergarten Storm Worksheet — Kindergarten Science
Name: ____________________________ Date: ______________

Student Worksheet

  1. Look at the two pictures of the bridge over Cobbin Creek. One is a dry day. One is after a day of rain. Tell one thing that is not the same.
  2. In the rainy picture, is the creek higher or lower than in the dry one?
  3. Look at the hill picture. Rain fell on the roof. Trace the path that roof water takes down to the creek.
  4. Rain also fell on the street and on the yard. Where did the street water and the yard water go?
  5. A friend says the creek got deep from rain that fell right on the creek. Look at the hill again. Tell what else made the creek deep.
  6. The rain stopped at lunch. The creek went up more at night. Why did more water keep coming?
  7. The town of Thrushfield knew about the big rain one day early. Name one thing the park crew can do before the rain starts.
  8. Ask the park crew one question about the creek and the storm.
  9. Ask one question about what the crew will check after the creek goes down.
  10. Draw the bridge three days after the rain stops. Tell why you drew the water that way.

From Water for Schools (waterforschools.org). This material is in the public domain (CC0) and may be copied, edited, and shared freely.

Answer Key
  1. Answer: The water is higher after the rain. Accept any real difference the student names, such as the creek looking wider, browner, faster, or closer to the bridge deck, and accept a pointed finger in place of words.
  2. Answer: Higher. The water line in the rainy picture sits close under the bridge deck, while in the dry picture it sits well below it.
  3. Answer: Down the hill to the creek. The traced path should leave the roof, cross the street, cross the yard, and end in Cobbin Creek at the bottom of the slope.
  4. Answer: Into the same creek. Both ran downhill, so the street water and the yard water ended in the low place the roof water reached.
  5. Answer: Rain that fell on the rest of the town. Water landed on roofs, streets, and yards all over the town of Thrushfield, ran downhill, and added itself to the creek.
  6. Answer: Water was still running downhill. Rain that fell far from the creek takes hours to travel there, so the creek keeps rising for a while after the sky clears.
  7. Answer: Close the low bridge. Accept any sensible step taken ahead of the rain, such as roping off the path, carrying the picnic tables uphill, putting out a warning sign, or telling families to stay away from the creek.
  8. Answer: Accept any question about the storm or the creek, such as "How high will the water get?" Full credit requires a question rather than a statement, and a student may ask it out loud.
  9. Answer: Accept any question about the work that follows the storm, such as "Will you check the bridge for cracks?" or "Who washes the mud off the path?" This response must also be a question.
  10. Answer: The water back down below the bridge. The rain has stopped and the water that ran downhill has already gone past, so the creek drops toward its dry-day level again.

Differentiation

Support

Give these students an enlarged hillside drawing with three dotted paths already printed from the roof, the street, and the yard down to Cobbin Creek, so item 3 becomes following a line rather than inventing one. For item 6, act the delay out with a length of blue yarn stretched from the back of the room to a bucket at the front, drawing it in hand over hand while the class watches, and say that water from the far edge of this fictional town is still on its way.

Extension

Ask these students to add one more surface to the hillside drawing, such as a parking lot or a school roof, draw its path to the creek, and say what that addition does to the water in the creek. Then have them tell a partner what the park crew in the town of Thrushfield would do differently if the forecast had arrived one hour before the rain instead of a full day.

ELL supports

Pre-teach creek, bridge, downhill, and rise with the two bridge pictures side by side and a hand gesture for water going up and water going down. Offer the sentence frame "The water went ___," with up and down printed beside small arrows, and accept a traced path or a pointed finger as a complete answer to items 3 and 4 about this fictional creek.

Extensions

After the next real rain, walk the class to the lowest spot on the school grounds, look at the water standing there, and trace with a pointed finger the ground that water had to cross to reach it. Back inside, compare that low spot with Cobbin Creek in the fictional town of Thrushfield, and ask which parts of the school grounds send their rain to it. Over the following week, read the forecast at morning meeting and have the class say, before each rainy day, whether they expect the low spot to hold water again.