Lesson plan Kindergarten Social Studies & Civics
The Day Hollow Rock Got Its Town Pump
A 30-minute kindergarten lesson about one improvement a made-up town built, where children order four picture cards of the work and draw the day the pump first ran.
Objectives
- Students will retell in order the four steps a crew took to build a town pump.
- Students will name one reason the town decided to build the pump.
- Students will draw the day the pump first ran and dictate or write what happened.
Vocabulary
- Pump
- A pump is a machine that adds energy to water to move it or push it uphill, doing the job gravity cannot do on its own. Water systems use many different kinds of pumps to move water from wells, through treatment, and out to customers.
Also: handle, square, crew, town
Teacher overview
This lesson tells the story of a single day in the town of Hollow Rock, a made-up town that decided to dig a well in its square and set a public pump on top of it, because kindergartners follow one event more readily than a long stretch of history. The lesson is about a decision and the work that followed it: the town met, the town chose, a crew dug, and one morning the handle went down and water came up. Children put the four steps of that work in order and then draw the morning it first ran.
Sketch the four cards on paper large enough for the class to see from the rug, or draw them on the board and cover each one until it is needed. A broom handle laid across two chairs gives every child a pump handle to push.
Procedure
Story on the rug (5 min): Gather the class and read aloud: "Long ago, the town of Hollow Rock had no taps. Families pulled water from wells in their yards, and the yard wells kept going dry. Then every family walked down to the creek with a pail. The walk was long. In winter the path turned to ice. One year the town met in the schoolhouse. They talked about the walk. They picked a spot in the middle of the square. They said: let us dig a well right here, so nobody has to walk so far." Ask one question and take three answers: "Why did the town pick the middle of the square?" Listen for the idea that the middle is close to everybody.
Ordering the work (7 min): Show the four picture cards out of order and describe each one in a short sentence. Give the cards to four children and have the class direct them into a line at the front of the room, telling each child where to stand and why. When the line is right, walk down it and say each step aloud together: dig the hole, set the pipe, bolt on the pump, turn it on.
Acting it out (9 min): In groups of four, children act the same four steps in order, one step per child, while the rest of the class calls out which step is happening. Then bring everyone back to the pretend handle and let each child push it down twice while the class says "up comes the water." Finish this segment by writing on chart paper the two reasons the class gives for why the pump helped the town, in their own words.
Draw the first morning (6 min): Read the last part of the story: "One spring morning the whole town came to the square. A girl named Etta pushed the handle down. Water came up into her pail. The crowd cheered, and Etta filled a pail for the woman next to her." Each child draws that morning and dictates or writes one sentence about what happened and how the town felt. Scribe for children who dictate.
Closing check (3 min): Shuffle the four cards and hold them up. Ask the class to point to the one that came first, then the one that came last. Look for most of the room pointing at the digging card and then at the pump-running card. Any child who is unsure gets a quick reorder with you at the table.
Student Handout
There is no printed page for children at this age. The drawing and the class chart are the product. Make four picture cards by sketching the following, one per card, large enough to be seen from the rug.
- A crew digging a deep hole in the middle of the town square
- Two workers lowering a long pipe down into the hole
- A worker bolting an iron pump on top of the pipe
- People crowded around the pump with water running into a pail
From Water for Schools (waterforschools.org). This material is in the public domain (CC0) and may be copied, edited, and shared freely.
Differentiation
Support
Give these children two cards rather than four, the digging card and the running-pump card, and ask only which came first. During the acting segment, assign them the step they choose and let a partner call it out with them. For the drawing, offer a page with the pump already outlined so the child adds the people, the pail, and the water.
Extension
Ask these children to name one job the town still had to do after the pump was built, such as fixing the handle or keeping the square clean, and to add that job to the class chart. Invite them to dictate a second sentence for their drawing that tells what Etta did next.
ELL supports
Pre-teach dig, pipe, pump, and handle with the motion for each, and have the class repeat the word while making the motion. The card-ordering task is language-light by design, and pointing counts as a full answer. Provide the frame "First they ____." for the acting segment, and accept dictated captions in a child's home language with the English word added as you scribe.
Extensions
Look for an old hand pump, a spring house, a cistern, or a public fountain in your own town or county, and show the class a photograph of it, then ask what the town had to decide before that thing could be built. Many local historical societies keep photographs of the day a water project opened, and such a photograph shows the class a real crowd around a real pump.