Worksheet Kindergarten Social Studies & Civics

Water Truck Day in Salt Kettle: What Comes First?

A kindergarten worksheet set on the day a made-up town's taps are off, with counting and take-away items about the water jugs a truck delivers and which jobs come first.

Grade: Kindergarten
Subject: Social Studies & Civics
Material: Worksheet
Time: 20 min
Prep: No prep
Materials: None

Standards

D2.Eco.1.K-2 C3 Framework

Explain how scarcity necessitates decision making.

How this material aligns: Items seven and eight put a limited number of water jugs against more jobs than the jugs can cover, so children explain why a shortage forces a family to choose what comes first.

All materials for D2.Eco.1.K-2 →

K.CC.B.5 Common Core Math

Count to answer 'how many?' questions about as many as 20 things arranged in a line, a rectangular array, or a circle, or as many as 10 things in a scattered configuration; given a number from 1-20, count out that many objects.

How this material aligns: The first two items ask how many jugs sit in each delivery row on the page, which is counting objects arranged in a line to answer a how-many question.

All materials for K.CC.B.5 →

K.OA.A.2 Common Core Math

Solve addition and subtraction word problems, and add and subtract within 10, e.g., by using objects or drawings to represent the problem.

How this material aligns: Item four combines the two delivery rows, and items five and six are take-away word problems within ten, all worked with the jug pictures the page already supplies as the counting objects.

All materials for K.OA.A.2 →

Download Word file

This material is in the public domain (CC0) and may be copied, edited, and shared freely, without attribution. Updated 2026-07-23.

Objectives

Students will count two rows of water jugs and say which row has more.
Students will solve take-away problems within ten about jugs a family uses.
Students will name one water job that comes first and tell why.

Vocabulary

Key words: jug, truck, first, wait, left

Teacher overview

Scarcity is a hard word for kindergartners, yet a day without running water makes the idea behind it plain. This worksheet is set in the town of Salt Kettle, a made-up town whose taps are shut off for one day while a crew repairs the tank, so a truck brings jugs of water street by street. Children count the jugs on two delivery rows, work two take-away problems about a family using its jugs, and then decide which water job cannot wait.

The counting stays within ten and uses the pictures on the page as the objects, so no child needs to hold a number in their head. Read every item aloud. The last two items carry the social studies work of the page, and they are worth more discussion time than the counting items.

Water Truck Day in Salt Kettle: What Comes First? — Kindergarten Social Studies & Civics

Name: ____________________________ Date: ______________

Student Worksheet

Read this to the class. Read it two times.

The town of Salt Kettle shut off the taps for one day. A crew had to fix the big tank. A truck brought jugs of water to each street. There were not many jugs. So each home had to pick what to do first.

What the page shows. A row of six jugs sits by a home on Hill Road. A row of three jugs sits by a home on Oak Road. Two picture cards sit at the bottom. One card shows a child drinking. One card shows a car being washed.

Now do each one. You may point, count, or tell.

Count the jugs in the Hill Road row. How many jugs are there?
Count the jugs in the Oak Road row. How many jugs are there?
Which row has more jugs, Hill Road or Oak Road?
Count all the jugs on the page. How many jugs in all?
A home gets 7 jugs. It uses 2 jugs to cook. How many jugs are left?
The home has 5 jugs left. It uses 3 jugs to drink. How many jugs are left now?
Draw a ring around the job that comes first: a drink of water, or a wash for the car.
Tell your teacher why that job comes first.

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

Answer Key

Answer: 6 jugs. The Hill Road row holds six jugs, counted one at a time from left to right.
Answer: 3 jugs. The Oak Road row holds three jugs.
Answer: Hill Road. Six is greater than three, which a child can also show by matching each Oak Road jug to a Hill Road jug and finding three Hill Road jugs left over.
Answer: 9 jugs. Six jugs on Hill Road and three jugs on Oak Road make nine jugs in all.
Answer: 5 jugs. Seven jugs take away two jugs leaves five jugs.
Answer: 2 jugs. Five jugs take away three jugs leaves two jugs.
Answer: A drink of water. The drinking card is the one to ring.
Answer: People need water to drink, and a dirty car can wait. Accept any reason that puts drinking, cooking, or washing hands ahead of the car, and note which children mention that the jugs run out.

Differentiation

Support

Give these children real counters or paper jugs to place on top of each printed jug before they count, and let them slide the counters away for items five and six so the take-away is physical. Cover the row they are not counting with a blank card. For item eight, offer two spoken choices and let the child repeat the one they agree with.

Extension

Ask these children to write a number sentence for item five or item six using their own numerals, then to invent one more jug problem for a partner using the nine jugs on the page. Have them dictate a rule that the town of Salt Kettle could post on truck day, such as one that says how many jugs each home may take.

ELL supports

Pre-teach jug, truck, left, and wait by holding up a real jug and acting out pouring, carrying, and waiting. Provide the sentence frames "There are ____ jugs." and "A drink comes first because ____." Allow counting aloud in a child's home language, since the count is the same in any language.

Extensions

Fill one gallon jug and set it on a table, then ask the class to name every job that jug would have to cover for one day, listing them on chart paper until the class agrees the jug has run out. Many utilities and emergency-management offices give away small emergency-water checklists, and a kindergarten version of that checklist makes a strong family take-home.