1st Grade Top or Bottom Pictures Worksheet: Read, Then Color the Number

Show a six-year-old a drawing of a rocket and ask where it goes, and the answer comes fast: up, in the sky. Ask where it sits in a picture box, and the answer takes a second look. This 1st grade top or bottom pictures worksheet plays with that second look. Nine tall boxes each stack two pictures, number 1 above number 2: a birthday cake over a box of fries, an ear of corn over a cucumber, a purple balloon over a yellow one. Each box carries a question about the top or the bottom, and the child colors the number of the right picture. The questions change from box to box, so the page asks for reading as well as looking. A second page gives the answer key.

Why place in the box beats what the picture means

Young children often answer from what they know about an object, not from where it sits. A rocket belongs in the sky, a kite flies high, so it must be at the top. This page gently tests that habit.

In the bottom row, for example, the rocket sits in the lower half of its box, under a spinning top. The question asks about the bottom, so the rocket is the answer, even though rockets fly. The middle row does the same with a child doing a handstand at the bottom.

Separating the place from the meaning is a real step in spatial vocabulary. It also trains visual scanning from the top of a box down. Look first, then decide.

At the table: the rocket and the handstand

Start with the cake and the fries, which most children answer at once. Then slow down at the boxes where the meaning pulls the other way.

At the spinning top and the rocket, a child may color 1 because rockets go up. Instead of correcting, put a finger on the top half of the box and ask your child to name what sits there. Next, move the finger down.

The upside-down child in the middle row can also cause a pause. Their head points down, yet the whole picture stays in the bottom half. If your child hesitates, cover one half with a hand and ask, "Which picture can you still see?"

After the page: top shelf, bottom shelf

Cupboards and bookcases are full of top and bottom. While you put away groceries, ask your child to place the corn on the top shelf and the apples on the bottom one. Then swap roles and let them give you the orders.

I Spy works well here too. Try "I spy something on the top shelf" or "I spy something at the bottom of the stairs," so the clue is a place, not a color.

When your child checks the page with the answer key, point to one box they had to think about. Name the effort: "You looked at where the rocket sat. That's careful thinking." Coloring the right number then means more than a good guess. That is how they color the answer with confidence.