12A COTTAGE GROVE SENTINEL OCTOBER 11, 2017
© 2017 by Vicki Whiting, Editor Jeff Schinkel, Graphics Vol. 33, No. 44
Pretend you are a mighty oak
tree and give these exercises
a try.
In winter, many kinds
of oak trees, being
deciduous, lose
their leaves.
During that
time when
sunlight is
especially precious
for warmth, the oak tree’s
leafless branches let the
sun shine through.
Oak trees make
good shade trees
because they grow
tall and wide
enough to
create a big
canopy that
you can sit
under on a hot,
sunny day.
A canopy
is a covering,
either natural
or man-made.
try
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Oak trees provided more than shade for the first Americans.
Their fruit, known as acorns, were an essential source of
food for Native Americans from coast to coast.
Curl up into a tight ball like
an acorn. Then slowly start
to stand up, stre-e-e-tching
your arms as far as you
can, like branches on a
growing oak tree.
The acorns were ground into a meal that was used to make
mush or pounded with meat, fat and berries to make
pemmican, a paste that dries into chewy, nutritious strips.
Read the steps that Native
Americans followed to remove
tannins from acorns. Then number
the pictures in the correct order.
Whoa! You’re now in a big
wind storm. Lean as far as
you can to one side, then
the other.
1. Shell the acorns by splitting the
outer shell and removing the
light-colored inner nut.
2. Grind the shelled acorns into a
fine meal.
3. Scoop the pounded meal into a
basket.
With a friend, take turns drawing a
horizontal or vertical line between two dots.
Completing a square is worth 1 point.
If there’s an acorn in the box, that’s
worth 5 points.
4. Rinse the acorn meal with hot
water to wash away the tannins.
The meal must be rinsed at least
ten times, or more if cold water
is used.
5. Add water to the leached meal
and stir with a hot rock lodged
into a looped stick.
Now it’s fall. Shake,
shake, shake those dead
leaves off!
6. Add berries, seeds or dried meat
for flavor.
7. Eat!
Nutshell is a compound word.
Draw a line from each acorn cap
to a nut to form compound words.
Match each acorn to the kind of oak tree it comes from. Do the
math to check your answers.
Look through the newspaper for pictures and
words that show you it is fall in your town.
Cut these out and make a “Fall in My Town”
poster. Bonus Challenge: Put the words you
find in ABC order.
DECIDUOUS
PEMMICAN
SUNLIGHT
POUNDED
TANNINS
NATIVE
CANOPY
ACORN
COAST
SHELL
SHADE
PASTE
MEAT
MUSH
OAK
For five minutes,
look through the
newspaper or your
newspaper’s
website for
compound words.
Then have a friend
try. Who found the
most compound
words?
Find the words in the puzzle,
then in this week’s Kid Scoop
stories and activities.
G S H E L L R O W P
T P U E D A H S O S
H E T O A K C U C Y
Use a stack of books in
each hand to pretend some
kids built a tree fort in your
branches. How long can
you hold the books up?
Standards Link: Physical Education: Use a
variety of basic and advanced movement forms.
Complete the grid by using all the letters
in the word ACORN in each vertical and
horizontal row. Each letter should only
be used once in each row. Some spaces
have been filled in for you.
G M H S U M N O E P
I M E A L D A V R O
L I L A E S
I A N N
N C D D T T N C I A
U A D P A S T E E C
S N I N N A T E R D
One day I was climbing
an old oak tree and …
Finish this story.