May 13th, 2016

Salty Sam’s Fun Blog for Children

Post Number 65

Trees

 

 Hello Everyone

 

 

When my first book Salty Sam and the Windy Day was published, the lnternational Tree Foundation very kindly agreed to plant some trees to help celebrate its publication.

 

The trees are now growing all over the place; some of them in school-grounds, some of them in gardens.

 

Trees are the biggest plants on the planet.

 

A giant redwood tree can grow more than 100 metres or 300 feet high and some trees are nearly 5,000 years old!

 

You can tell how old a tree is by measuring its girth (around its trunk) or counting the rings inside. Each ring represents one year. The narrower rings were formed in the winter and the wider ones in the summer when there was higher rainfall to make the trees grow more.

 

Trees in the far north make tougher wood because where the weather is colder the rings are smaller and tighter together – this makes the timber denser and, therefore, better quality.

 

lf trees drop their leaves in winter to conserve (not lose) water, they are called deciduous. ln spring these broadleaf trees have flowers. They are usually quite small and green and come out with the sprouting leaves so you have to look carefully to spot them. These flowers eventually turn into seeds which fall in the autumn or the following year.

 

Conifers such as pines and firs are evergreen. They have thin leaves called needles which have a thick skin on them called a cuticle. This cuticle helps to prevent water loss and gives protection in cold weather.

 

The conifers produce their seeds inside cones. Only the larch, which is a conifer, drops its needles in autumn, the others are evergreen. That means they are green all winter.

 

Trees in the tropical rainforests don’t all lose their leaves at one time. There is a dense green canopy all year round.

 

These places support an abundance (lots of) of life and a huge variety of species.

 

Many of the plants from the rainforests are being used to create medicines to cure serious illnesses. They are very important.

 

Some types of trees give us food like fruit trees and nut trees.

 

You might have some growing in your garden.

 

Auntie Alice has planted a few trees in her garden and Bill, Bob, Captain Jack and l have helped her to do it.

 

 

Bye bye everyone – don’t forget to subscribe to my blog!

 

Love and kisses

 

 

Salty Sam

www.christina-sinclair.com

 

 

 

Bill and Bob’s Joke of the Week

 

Bill: What is the difference between an oak tree and a tight shoe?

 

Bob: l don’t know. What is the difference between an oak tree and a tight shoe?

 

Bill: One makes acorns and the other makes corns ache!

 

 

Salty Sam © Christina Sinclair 2015

Unauthorized use and/or duplication of material from this blog without express and written permission from this blog’s author and owner is strictly prohibited.

Links may be used to www.christina-sinclair.com 

 

Picture Gallery

 

A Lebanon cedar tree has a distinctive shape with horizontal branches

It is featured on the flag of Lebanon

 

May blossom smells very sweet

 

The branch of a larch

The larch is the only needle tree to lose its needles in winter

 

Yew berries are very poisonous to people and animals

 

A maple leaf has a very distinctive shape

 

Beech trees grow to an enormous size

Three times the height of a house and more

 

The blossom of the horse chestnut tree turns to conkers in the autumn

 Conkers are the seeds of the horse chestnut

 

Deciduous trees lose their leaves in the autumn

 

Some plants lose their leaves in autumn like this Acer tree and some are evergreen like the ivy plant that is growing up it

 

This narrow-leaved ash has just a few more leaves to drop as November approaches

 

A lot of trees are easy to identify in the winter because of the shape of their branches –

this larch has lost its needles but you can still see its cones

 

Larch loses its needles in autumn

 

Larch cones

 

The larch needles drop off in the autumn and grow back in the spring

 

Some conifers have extremely long needles

 

Laurel bushes also have tough evergreen leaves

They are green all winter

 

 

Frozen water cannot be sucked up by the roots of trees like liquid water can be

 

Even through the winter snows the buds of spring are developing

 

This bud is sprouting at the end of a branch in April

 

Two days later the flowers are visible and the leaves are following them out

 

Four days after that the flower stalks are even longer

 

There are flowers all along the branches

 

Four days after that the flowers are nearly all out and the leaves are growing bigger

 

The spring sunshine encourages growth

 

Two weeks later the flowers have been pollinated and are turning into seeds

and the leaves are full-sized 

 

In November everything has flown away in the autumn winds but the buds are set for the following spring already

 

The ice and snow of winter comes to complete the circle

 

In the spring the seed cases have rotted away and the seeds are sprouting

 

If they can find a place where there is some earth and they won’t be disturbed, they grow into another tree

 

In the spring the buds start to swell

 

The buds will burst and reveal more flowers and then leaves like the year before

 

And then in a few days the leaves are out

 

 

 

      THE SALTY SAM NEWS DESK

  

Last weekend Bill and Bob went on a long car journey, and to keep them amused their mum gave them some puzzles to do.

They had to unjumble these letters to find types of trees and then they had to look out of the car windows and see if they could find them in the landscape.

 

 

 

See if you can un-jumble these words too…

 

1. ewy
2. kao
3. rhcal
4. lamp
5. ceehb
6. nipe
7. dacre
8. lampe
9. orhesenutthc
10. wanrothh

 

(The answers are in the word search puzzle)

 

Bill and Bob in the woods behind Auntie Alice’s cottage

 

 

If you would like to see lots of interesting pictures of trees from around the world, then check out my trees Pinterest board at: 

https://www.pinterest.com/TheSaltySamBlog/trees/

 

 

 

 

 

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Recipe Spot

 

This is a really easy recipe to make a quick, hot dessert called almond roll – if you have the oven on for your main meal you can put it in with that (this saves money on electricity).

You must ask permission to use the oven. Your mum or dad might prefer to put your almond roll in the oven themselves when they are cooking the dinner.

This recipe serves 4-6 people.

 

Mix together in a bowl

 

20g / 3/4 ounce     butter

1/4 – 1/3 cup           sugar

2 teaspoons           vanilla essence

2 teaspoons           almond essence

 1 cup/150g             almond flakes

 

(You could add fruit jam instead of the sugar, if you wanted to)

 

1. Spread the mixture across a sheet of ready made puff pastry but not quite up to the edge
2. Roll the pastry up widthways
3. Place on a greased baking sheet
4. Bake at 200°c for 30 minutes
5. Eat hot or cold with or without cream or custard
6. lf there is any left over, you can take a slice to school in your packed lunch box
    

    

    

   

 

 

BLOW MY FOGHORN!!! 

 

 
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lt’s the Weekend!

 

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YEW               LARCH            BEECH                CEDAR            HORSECHESTNUT

OAK                PALM              PINE               MAPLE            HAWTHORN

 

Answers next week…

 

Please note that the material on this blog is for personal use and for use in classrooms only.

It is a copyright infringement and, therefore, illegal under international law to sell items made with these patterns.

Use of the toys and projects is at your own risk.

©Christina Sinclair Designs 2015

 

 

Lebanon cedar