Water for Schools
Menu

Lesson plan Grade 1 Social Studies & Civics

Pennyroyal's Low Tank: Choosing Water Uses in a Dry Week

A 35-minute grade 1 economics lesson using twenty blue counters as a town's water tank, four job cards, and an opinion sentence about which use should wait.

Objectives

  1. Students will explain why a town must choose when there is not enough water for every job.
  2. Students will rank four town water uses and give one reason for the first choice.
  3. Students will write one opinion sentence with a reason about a use that can wait.

Vocabulary

Key words: tank, share, choose, wait, dry

Teacher overview

Scarcity is an abstract word, yet the situation behind it is concrete: one bin of counters has to cover four town jobs, and it does not hold enough for all of them. This lesson builds that situation with twenty blue counters standing in for the tank of a fictional town called Pennyroyal, which has gone three weeks without rain.

The design detail that makes the lesson work is that the four job cards together ask for more counters than the tank holds. Groups cannot satisfy every card, so the discussion shifts from giving every job some water to deciding which job waits. Draw the tank outline before class and set the counters beside it. Answers differ from group to group, which is the point, so no numeric key is included.

Procedure

Setting the scene (5 min): Show the chart paper tank and drop twenty counters inside it one at a time while the class counts aloud to twenty. Tell the class that this is all the water the town of Pennyroyal has for one week, because no rain has fallen in three weeks and the tank did not refill.

Meet the four jobs (8 min): Read the four job cards aloud, one at a time, and post each beside the tank. Say the amount each job asks for as you read it. Add the four amounts on the board with the class and compare that total with twenty. Ask the question that drives the rest of the lesson: "There is not enough for all four. What do we do?"

Group choices (12 min): In groups of four, students take a set of twenty counters and place them on the four job cards however they choose. Every group must end with all twenty counters placed and must agree on which job got the least. Circulate and ask each group one question: "Why did that job get the fewest?"

Formative check (3 min): Go group by group and ask for one sentence naming the job they cut first and the reason. Every group should name a job and a reason. If a group names the job but no reason, ask a follow-up question and stay with them until a reason is stated.

Opinion writing (5 min): Each student takes an index card and writes one opinion sentence with a reason, using the frame on the handout. Scribe for students who dictate.

Close (2 min): Read three cards aloud. Tell the class that towns hold real meetings about questions like this one when a dry summer comes.

Pennyroyal's Low Tank: Choosing Water Uses in a Dry Week — Grade 1 Social Studies & Civics
Name: ____________________________ Date: ______________

Student Handout

The Four Job Cards for the Town of Pennyroyal

Copy these onto four large cards, one job per card, and read each aloud.

  • Drinking and cooking. People need water every day for drinking, cooking, and washing hands. This job asks for eight counters.
  • The firehouse. The fire truck must keep its tank full in case of a fire. This job asks for six counters.
  • The park garden. The tomato and bean plants at the town garden are starting to droop. This job asks for six counters.
  • Washing cars. The car wash on Mill Street wants to stay open all week. This job asks for four counters.

My opinion card. Copy these three lines onto your index card and finish each one in your own words.

  1. "The job I would give water to first is"
  2. "One reason is because"
  3. "The job that can wait is"

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

Differentiation

Support

Reduce the choice to two job cards, drinking and washing cars, so the contrast is sharp and the counting stays small. Provide the opinion frame with the first three words already printed, and allow the student to circle a job card picture instead of writing the job name.

Extension

Give these students a fifth card, the school water fountain, that asks for three counters, and ask them to rework their placement. Then ask them to write a second sentence explaining what changed about their first choice and why, which pushes toward the idea that new information can change a decision.

ELL supports

Use the job cards as picture cards first, with a simple drawing on each: a cup, a fire truck, a tomato plant, a car. Pre-teach wait and choose with a classroom example, such as waiting for a turn at the sink. Accept the opinion stated orally in the home language and scribe an English version together, then have the student copy the reason clause.

Extensions

Repeat the placement with a second, wetter scenario in which the tank holds twenty counters and rain is forecast for tomorrow, then ask whether any group would change its choices. Comparing the two rounds shows that a decision depends on the conditions, not only on the list of jobs.