12A COTTAGE GROVE SENTINEL OCTOBER 18, 2018
© 2017 by Vicki Whiting, Editor Jeff Schinkel, Graphics Vol. 33, No. 45
Are you an eagle-eyed reader?
Read the articles below and
correct the eight spelling and
grammar errors you find.
The first one is done for you.
Sea otters are mammals and need
to breathe air. They rest on their
backs riding the swells of the sea.
To keep from floating
away, they wrap
themselves in kelp
that is growing out of
the sea floor.
ea otters spend a lot of time swimming and hunting for
food, but still have plenty of time for play. And
watching a sea otter
at play brings a
smile to nearly
anyone’s face.
Standards Link: Life Science: Students
know that living organisms have distinct
structures and body systems that serve
specific functions in survival.
Potential Fur-tastrophe!
Sea otters once ranged from
Baja California to Canada.
Today, they are only found in
a small area of California’s
central cost. Wear there were
once hundreds of thousands,
there are now less than 3,000.
Hunted
In the 1700s, european and
Russian sailors discovered sea
otters along the west cost of the
United States and hunted them
for their thick, warm fur. Over
the kourse of nearly 200 years,
hundreds of thousands of sea
Sea otters eat crabs, clams and red sea urchins. Cracking the hard
shells of these animals is a challenge, but the sea otter has found
a solution. It is one of the few animals to use a tool.
A hungry sea otter finds a rock on the sea floor, tucks it beneath
a flap of loose skin under a forelimb, grabs a few clams and
swims to the surface. Once there, the otter rolls over onto its back
and places the rock on its chest. It bangs a clam against the rock
until it breaks open then scoops out and eats the morsel of meat.
otters were killed. In 1911, so
ea otters have very little
body fat and rely on their
fabulous fur to keep them warm in
the cold Pacific ________. Their
fur is thick—really thick—perhaps
the ___________ fur in the world.
If you were to put a penny on a sea
otter, it would ____________ about
250,000 hairs. That is more than
twice the _____________ of hair
on your entire head.
few were left that people
agreed to step hunting them.
By 1938, many scientists
thought they had died out and
become extinct.
In March of 1938, Howard
Sharpe, an author who lived
on the California coast, saw a
small groop of otters. That
Otter fur holds tiny air bubbles,
which serve as insulation against
the ____________.
discovery jump-started an
effort by scientists and
environmentalists to help this
If a sea otter’s fur gets __________,
it won’t hold air as well. These
creatures clean themselves
often so that their fur can
do its job.
little colony grow.
Endangered Otters
Today, there is still a struggle
Imagine a world
without the letter O.
Using an article
from today’s
newspaper, cross
out all the words
containing the letter
O. Give the article
to a friend. Can your
friend understand
the article?
Standards Link:
Reading Comprehension:
Understand word meanings
from context clues.
to keep otters from becoming
extinckt. Pollution from
pesticides and waste from
humans and their pets wash
into the sea. These make otters
sick. California passed a law to
stop pet waste from being
dumped into the ocean. Coastal
Cleanup Days also help protect
sea otters.
Standards Link: Editing: Edit drafts to correct
spelling and grammar.
Each day, a sea otter eats one-fourth
of its own weight in food.
That would be like:
a 60-pound person eating
Do the math to
find out how many
pounds of food
each person would
eat if he or she
were a sea otter!
5 + 5 + 5 = ______
pounds of food in one day.
a 100-pound person eating
10 + 12 + 3 = ______
pounds of food in one day.
a 148-pound person eating
15 + 17 + 5 = ______
pounds of food in one day.
Standards Link: Number Sense: Solve problems
using addition.
Otter Home
Read the classified ads listing homes for sale.
Based on what you learned from today’s Kid
Scoop page about otters, write a classified ad
describing the perfect home for an otter.
Standards Link: Writing Applications: Write brief descriptions
about objects.
OTTERS
PACIFIC
KELP
URCHINS
CLAMS
TOOL
DENSEST
MORSEL
SWELLS
SOLUTION
BUBBLES
WEIGHT
SMILE
HAIR
ROCKS
Find the words by looking up,
down, backwards, forwards,
sideways and diagonally.
B M S L L E W S P L
U O S M A L C S A N
B R N W Y I
B S I
F R S O
E F P L E K I
L E H I
S L O T C T
E L C G M T O T O U
S A R H I O T O R L
P E U T L R I A H O
R S T S E S N E D S
Standards Link: Letter sequencing. Recongized identical
words. Skim and scan reading. Recall spelling patterns.
This week’s word:
INSULATE
The verb insulate means
to cover or surround with
something that stops the
movement of heat.
Air bubbles in their fur
insulate sea otters
from the cold.
Try to use the word
insulate in a sentence
today when talking with
your friends and family.
Talking Otter
You have been asked to
interview a talking otter on a
television show. Write up this
imaginary interview. What
will you ask the otter? What
will the otter say in response?
Cottage Grove Sentinel
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