Summer Tree Study - Oak

We have had some lovely summer days the past few weeks and today we sat out in the garden to finish our year long tree study on our Oak tree.

We looked at the acorns in Autumn, bark and silhouette in Winter and the buds in spring and today on this lovely sunny day we took a look at the leaves.

We noticed the new growth and how the colour and texture of the new leaves was vastly different to the more mature leaves.

We had missed the flowering stage but we talked about how the oak has male and female flowers. Here is an image of the male flowers - drooping catkin like.

The female flower is much smaller and situated where the leaf attaches to the stalk. The catkin release several million pollen grains which are blown by the wind in the hope of pollinating the female flower, which them develops into the acorn.

Wow I never knew this about the oak tree - I must look out for the flowers next year - although as I mentioned in the last tree study its not always easy to observe as the branches start fairly high up! I trimmed the end of this branch so we could have a closer look to see if we could spot the acorns developing. This looks like them ; ) I also didn't realise that some oak trees have acorns that take 1 year to mature while other varieties take 2 years.

Here are the children enjoying their outdoor time.

And here are there notebook pages along with leaf rubbings.

I've really enjoyed our year long tree study and will definitely be choosing another tree to study next year