Water for Schools
Menu

Classroom activity Kindergarten Social Studies & Civics

Every Shop on Cobbler Street Needs Water

A 30-minute kindergarten matching activity where partners pair ten shops on a made-up street with the water job each one depends on, then build a class paper street.

Objectives

  1. Students will match a community place to the water job it depends on.
  2. Students will sort the places into water used inside and water used outside and count each group.
  3. Students will dictate or write one sentence about how a place on the street uses water.

Vocabulary

Key words: shop, street, inside, outside, match

Teacher overview

Every shop on a street runs on the same water supply that reaches the tap in a child's kitchen. This partner matching activity builds a paper version of Cobbler Street, a made-up shopping street with ten places on it, and asks each pair to find the one water job their shop could not open without. The structure of the task carries the idea, because a shop card has no place on the street until its water job is taped beside it.

Groups of two work best, with ten pairs covering all ten shops. In a smaller class, give some pairs two shops; in a larger class, make duplicate cards for the busiest shops and let two pairs compare their answers.

Activity Directions

Set up before class (5 min). Tape the butcher-paper strip along a wall at child height and draw a sidewalk line across the bottom. Write "Cobbler Street" at one end. Shuffle the ten water-job cards and spread them face up on a table across the room from the shop cards.

Hand out the shops (3 min). Give each pair one shop card and have them say the name of their shop out loud to the class. Tell them their shop cannot open until they find the water job that goes with it, which is waiting on the table across the room.

The matching hunt (10 min). Pairs walk to the table, choose the water-job card they think belongs to their shop, and bring both cards back to you. Ask one question before you approve a match: "What would happen at your shop if that water stopped?" If the pair cannot answer, send them back for another look. Approved pairs tape their two cards side by side on the street.

Build and tell (7 min). Once every shop is up, walk the class along the finished street. Each pair says one sentence about their shop, which you or a helper writes on a sentence strip and tapes under the cards. Children who prefer may draw a small picture on the strip instead of speaking first.

Sort and count (3 min). Ask the class which shops use their water mostly inside the building and which use it mostly outside. Move the cards into two clusters on the street, count each cluster out loud together, and ask which cluster has more cards.

Debrief (2 min). Close with two questions: "What would Cobbler Street look like on a day with no water?" and "Who has to work so that all ten shops get water every day?" Take three or four answers and end by naming the pipe under the street and the people who keep it working.

Every Shop on Cobbler Street Needs Water — Kindergarten Social Studies & Civics
Name: ____________________________ Date: ______________

Student Handout

Make each card by drawing a simple picture and writing the name under it. Index cards work well. Read the shop names aloud as you hand them out. The numbered list below is the shop set; the water jobs go on a separate set of cards, shuffled.

  1. The bakery
  2. The barber shop
  3. The plant shop
  4. The fire station
  5. The school
  6. The café
  7. The laundry
  8. The dog groomer
  9. The car wash
  10. The park

Water-job cards (shuffle these). Washing the pans and mixing the dough; washing hair at the sink; watering the plants on the shelf; filling the fire truck's tank; filling the drinking fountain; washing the dishes after lunch; washing loads of clothes; giving a dog a bath; spraying the cars; watering the grass and the flower beds.

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: Washing the pans and mixing the dough. Bread needs water in the dough, and the trays must be washed between batches.
  2. Answer: Washing hair at the sink. Accept any answer about the sink or the shampoo bowl.
  3. Answer: Watering the plants on the shelf. Children may point out that plants also need water at home, which is a fine connection.
  4. Answer: Filling the fire truck's tank. Accept "putting out a fire," since the truck fills from a hydrant fed by the same street pipe.
  5. Answer: Filling the drinking fountain. Accept the sinks in the bathrooms or the cafeteria as well.
  6. Answer: Washing the dishes after lunch. Accept cooking or making coffee, both of which depend on the same tap.
  7. Answer: Washing loads of clothes. This shop uses more water than most of the others, which is worth saying aloud.
  8. Answer: Giving a dog a bath. Accept "washing the dogs."
  9. Answer: Spraying the cars. Point out that many car washes clean and reuse their water.
  10. Answer: Watering the grass and the flower beds. This is the clearest outside use on the street.

Differentiation

Support

Give these pairs a shop card with the matching water job already sketched faintly in the corner so the hunt is a confirmation rather than a search. Reduce the table to four water-job cards for their turn. For the telling step, offer the frame "The ____ uses water to ____."

Extension

Ask these pairs to add one shop of their own invention to the end of the street, draw both cards themselves, and defend the match to the class. Then have them decide which single shop on Cobbler Street uses the most water in a day and give a reason, since the laundry and the car wash are both defensible answers.

ELL supports

Pre-teach the ten shop names with the picture cards before the activity begins, and let children repeat each one. Pair a newcomer with a fluent partner for the hunt. Accept a pointing answer at the debrief, and write the child's sentence in both languages on the sentence strip when a family member or aide can help.

Extensions

Walk a real block near the school and photograph or sketch each business, then rebuild the street on paper with the actual shops your class saw and repeat the matching step from memory. Invite a shop owner to visit for ten minutes and tell the class what happens in their shop on a day the water is shut off for repairs.