Thursday, January 21, 2010

Winter Tree Study


This week we are participating in a winter tree study. The children each selected a tree from our yard to study throughout the year. First up is T tree a Kousa dogwood. His tree measured 65 inches high and had a trunk circumference of 3 inches. We found the buds at the tip of each branch. These are the terminal buds. They mark the end of the branches growth for one season and the start of the next season’s growth. We learned that if you move your eye down the branch you can find a thin ring circling it. This is the bud scale scar. This is where last year’s terminal bud grew. The distance between the bud scale scar and the terminal bud is how much this part of the tree grew last year. We also found strange "snail like" objects or eggs on the under side of many branches. We were unable to identify what they were. Does anybody have any idea?






Next up is O's tree a Bloodgood Japanese maple.   Her tree measured 44 inches high and also had a trunk circumference of three inches.  The terminal buds on this tree are double buds. A few dried leaves still clung to her tree.  The children sketched pictures of their trees and did very small bark rubbings. We plan on clipping a small branch from each tree and "forcing" them to bud indoors.  Hopefully this will help to remind us all that spring is just around the corner....I for one and ready for it!


4 comments:

Barb said...

Great trees for your study....I have no idea what the creatures are on your dogwood. Fascinating.

I am really glad you are bringing in a twig to observe. We really enjoyed this activity last year and were amazed at the results.

Thank you so much for sharing your tree study. (You can submit it for the blog carnival if you want..
http://blogcarnival.com/bc/cprof_9182.html

Barb-Harmony Art Mom

Sebastian said...

The unidentified snail like objects are interesting.
What about snipping a bit of one of those twigs and putting it in a plastic jar somewhere to observe what comes out of them?

Michelle Gibson said...

Very neat study. I loved your pictures. How interesting about the snail like objects. I second the idea to observe them. I really like your close ups. I missed out on some great activities because I didn't read the book this week! I won't forget next week, for sure! Anyways, great job!

Unknown said...

Great study! You found out a lot of neat info.