A8
Hood River News, Wednesday, January 7, 2015
© 2014 by Vicki Whiting, Editor Jeff Schinkel, Graphics Vol. 31, No. 4
Each row of squares below
have the letters of a word that
can be found on this page.
Read today’s Kid Scoop page,
then try to unscramble them all.
SCORE YOURSELF:
1-3: Hiker
4-7: Tree Lover
8-10: Tree Specialist
ach year, a tree grows a new layer of wood
under its bark. By counting these layers,
called rings, you can discover the age of a tree.
This year, after you take the decorations off your
Christmas tree, count its rings! One ring equals
one year. (The bark is not a ring.) Can you find
out the age of your tree?
Standards Link: Visual discrimination.
My name is
Dr. Cypress Sapling.
I’m a dendrochronologist.
What’s that? Well, a
dendrochronologist is
a scientist who studies
the rings of trees.
he rings of a tree
can also show
what the climate of
the forest was during
different years.
Look at the tree
trunk pictured above. Some of the rings are wide and some of them
are thin. A wide ring tells us that this was a good year for growing.
There was the right amount of water and sunlight. Drought causes
slower growth and narrow rings. Dark spots tell us that the tree
survived a fire that year.
By reading the rings of trees, dendrochronologists can read the story
of our planet, stories that reside in living trees and in logs used to
build ancient buildings. Tree rings have told of weather patterns that
lead to severe fires. They have revealed century-long droughts,
insect plagues and times of volcanic eruptions.
Standards Link: Life Science: When the environment changes, plant growth and survival are affected.
GROWING
TREES
RINGS
WOOD
BARK
COUNTING
TRUNK
FIRE
CORE
CABIN
AGE
SAMPLES
PREDICT
WEATHER
My Christmas tree
survived a fire one
year. What year was
that? In what year
was my tree
planted? Is my tree
older than you? Find
the ring that grew in
2011. Was this a
good growing year
for the tree?
Standards Link: Math:
Students use strategies,
skills and concepts in finding solutions.
I found an old log cabin
while hiking last week.
I took a core sample
from the logs to find
the age of the cabin.
Core sample from Christmas tree
Make a list of 18
words from the
newspaper that have
double vowels.
Compare the core samples to see where the patterns of the
Circle the vowels.
rings match. The last ring of the living tree grew in the year Underline the vowel
2014. Count backwards from the bark to find out the age of whose sound you
each tree. Cutting out the strips makes comparing easier.
hear when you say
the word.
Use the core samples to complete the chart below.
HEAT
BOAT
EIGHT
Core sample from log cabin
Standards Link: Math: Use a table to sort information and compute results.
D R E H T A E W N P
E N D R E R O C I R
O S G T G C H O B E
R E K R A B S U A D
O L N E O N G N C I
O P U E L W N T F C
O M R S O G I I I T
S A T O B A R N T S
R S D E A E D G G R
Standards Link: Letter sequencing. Recognized identical
words. Skim and scan reading. Recall spelling patterns.
1. Use a strip of paper 60" long to make the timeline.
2. Divide the strip into enough equal segments to show the
number of weeks left in the school year.
3. Find a newspaper article that interests you. Write the headline,
lead sentence and date of the article in the first segment.
4. Follow the newspaper for more stories about this news item
and add each story or commentary to the timeline.
Core sample from living tree
I don’t have to cut down
trees to read their
rings. Using a special
tool called an increment
borer, I can take a core
sample from a living
tree. A core cample is
about the size of a soda
straw, and the rings
look like lines.
Find the words in the puzzle,
then in this week’s Kid Scoop
stories and activities.
Standards Link:
Decoding: Recognize
vowel digraphs.
Standards Link: Reading Comprehension: Follow multiple-step
directions.
The Life of a Tree
Imagine you could talk to a tree that
has lived for many, many years. What
would the tree tell you about its life?
… always staying on the trail
when hiking through the forest.