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Worksheet Kindergarten Science

Two Puddles at Duckwood School: A Sun and Shade Worksheet

A kindergarten worksheet where students compare a sunny puddle and a shady puddle measured in paper squares at two times of day and say where the water went.

Objectives

  1. Students will compare how much two puddles shrank in one school day.
  2. Students will subtract within ten to find how many squares each puddle lost.
  3. Students will explain that water leaving a warm sunny puddle goes into the air.

Vocabulary

Key words: puddle, sun, shade, dry, air, square

Teacher overview

Duckwood School is a fictional school whose kindergarten class checks the blacktop after a rainy night. On the morning this worksheet describes, two puddles sat on that blacktop and both were the same size. One of them sat in an open stretch that gets sun all day, and the other sat in the shade along the north wall of the building. The class laid a row of blue paper squares across each puddle at nine o'clock and again at one o'clock, wrote down how many squares wide each puddle was, and wrote the weather beside each reading. This sheet hands students that record and asks them to compare the two puddles, subtract to find how much each one lost, and account for the missing water. Read every item aloud, since the work is comparing, counting, and explaining rather than independent reading.

The misconception worth planning for is the common kindergarten belief that a puddle which disappears has soaked down through the blacktop or has simply stopped existing. Several students will say the sunny puddle "went down a hole," and the useful response is to walk the class out to a dry patch of blacktop and let them feel that it is solid with no hole in it. Water leaving an open puddle on a warm sunny day goes into the air, and the sun-versus-shade comparison in items 3 through 5 gives the class evidence for that explanation.

Two Puddles at Duckwood School: A Sun and Shade Worksheet — Kindergarten Science
Name: ____________________________ Date: ______________

Student Worksheet

  1. Two puddles sat on the blacktop. Both were 8 squares wide at nine o'clock. Were they the same size then, or was one bigger?
  2. At one o'clock the sun puddle was 2 squares wide. Did that puddle get bigger or smaller?
  3. The sun puddle was 8 squares wide at nine o'clock. It was 2 squares wide at one o'clock. How many squares did it lose?
  4. The shade puddle was 8 squares wide at nine o'clock. It was 6 squares wide at one o'clock. How many squares did it lose?
  5. The sun puddle lost 6 squares. The shade puddle lost 2 squares. Which puddle lost more?
  6. At nine o'clock the class wrote "cool and sunny." At one o'clock the class wrote "warm and sunny." Was the air warmer at nine or at one?
  7. No one wiped the puddles up. No one poured them out. Where did the missing water go?
  8. Why did the sun puddle dry faster than the shade puddle?
  9. The class washed the paint cups. They want the cups to dry fast. Should they set the cups in the sun or in the shade? Tell why.
  10. Draw the blacktop at one o'clock. Draw both puddles. Make the sun puddle small. Make the shade puddle bigger.

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 same size. Both puddles measured 8 squares wide at nine o'clock, so neither one started out bigger.
  2. Answer: Smaller. It went from 8 squares wide down to 2 squares wide over the morning.
  3. Answer: 6 squares. Counting back from 8 to 2 takes 6 steps, so 8 minus 2 leaves 6.
  4. Answer: 2 squares. Counting back from 8 to 6 takes 2 steps, so 8 minus 6 leaves 2.
  5. Answer: The sun puddle. Six squares lost is more than two squares lost, and students may line up six cubes beside two cubes to show it.
  6. Answer: At one o'clock. The class wrote "cool" in the morning and "warm" in the afternoon, so the air had warmed up by one o'clock.
  7. Answer: Into the air. Accept any answer that says the water dried up, went up, or turned into something we cannot see. Redirect "it went down a hole" by asking the student to find the hole in the blacktop.
  8. Answer: The sun made it warmer. The sunny spot got warm while the shady spot stayed cool, and warm water goes into the air faster.
  9. Answer: In the sun. Accept any reason that names the sun, warmth, or the puddle test, such as "the sun puddle dried first."
  10. Answer: A drawing with two puddles on the blacktop, the sun puddle small and the shade puddle bigger. Accept any drawing that shows the sun puddle as the smaller of the two.

Differentiation

Support

Give these students 8 blue paper squares and let them build each puddle row on the desk, then physically take away squares for items 3 and 4 instead of counting back in their heads. Read items 3 and 4 twice, pausing after each number so they can place or remove one square at a time.

Extension

Ask these students to predict what both puddles looked like at three o'clock and to draw that picture beside item 10, then explain out loud which puddle will still be there at the end of the day and why. Have them write the two subtraction sentences from items 3 and 4 as number sentences.

ELL supports

Pre-teach sun, shade, dry, and puddle by walking the class to a sunny spot and a shady spot on the blacktop and naming each one on the spot. Accept pointing to the correct puddle as a full answer for items 1, 2, 5, 6 and 9, and provide the sentence frame "The water went ___" with the word up written beside a small arrow drawing.

Extensions

Paint two matching water shapes on the blacktop with a brush, one in the sun and one in the shade, and have the class trace each shape with chalk at three points during the day so they can watch the sunny shape pull away from its chalk line first. Repeat the same two-puddle check on a cool cloudy day and ask the class to say what was different, which gives them a second weather reading to compare against this one.