Teacher Guide: Lesson 17.8

The Weekly Reader Connections feature on Kids' Place Houghton Mifflin Math provides children with additional information about the topics that appear in the Curriculum Connection feature in their student books.

The article “This Tree Is Alive!” informs children about the four main parts of a tree: roots, a trunk, branches, and leaves. It also introduces the difference between evergreen and deciduous trees. Children explore the many reasons for the importance of trees to people and animals. Food such as apples, oranges, coconuts, cherries, and almonds grow on trees. In addition, wood, paper, and chocolate come from trees. Some birds, such as robins, blue jays, woodpeckers, and chickadees, build their nests in trees.

The Word Wise activity has children draw a picture of a favorite tree, label its parts, and show how it would look during the four different seasons.

If time allows, you may wish to have children share their pictures and group the pictures by the different types of trees.

The Data Hunt activity has children practice the measurement concepts of longer, shorter, and same by answering multiple-choice questions.