Life as a woodpecker can’t be much fun, pounding your head against a tree all day. These birds use their strong bills to peck at a tree, which makes insects crawl out of the wood. The birds then lick up the bugs. Woodpeckers can peck up to 20 times per second! The pecking is so hard on their heads that woodpeckers have grown smaller brains than other birds. Maybe that’s why they haven’t figured out a better way to find dinner.
Wee ones: Take your pointy finger and “peck” at the wall 10 times as fast as you can!
Little kids: If a woodpecker scares an ant out of the tree, how many legs do they have together? Bonus: If the woodpecker scares up 10 bugs every minute, what numbers would you say to count them up over 6 minutes?
Big kids: A woodpecker pecks in the shape of a rectangle, with 12 holes across the top and bottom, and 9 on each vertical side. How many holes does the rectangle’s perimeter have? (Don’t double-count the corners!) Bonus: If a bug pops out on the 3rd peck, then the 7th, then the 12th, then the 18th…on what peck will the next bug pop out to continue the pattern?
The sky’s the limit: If 2 woodpeckers race each other, and one can peck 18 times a second while another pecks 15 times a second, how long will it take for the speedy woodpecker to be ahead by at least 100 pecks?
Answers:
Wee ones: See how fast you can count to 10!
Little kids: 8 legs. Bonus: 10, 20, 30, 40, 50, 60.
Big kids: 38 holes. The top and bottom add up to 24 holes, and each vertical side adds just 7 holes since the corners were counted in the 24. Bonus: On the 25th peck. We started with 3, then added 4, then 5, then 6, so now we add 7.
The sky’s the limit: 34 seconds. The speedy woodpecker pulls ahead by 3 pecks each second, so after 33 seconds it will be 99 pecks ahead; it then takes just 1 more second to outpeck by 100.
