Language Work - Adverbs

Hi, everyone! This week we're going to talk about a very special part of speech called the ADVERB! Adverbs are words that describe verbs or adjectives. They answer questions about verbs - specifically WHERE? WHEN? HOW?

Watch this video and see what I mean!

Let's do some practice. Try to find the adverb in the following sentence:

We're going out tomorrow to see if we can find any good carving pumpkins. (clue: It's an adverb that answers the question "where?")

A tip to finding the adverb is to first find the verb. This makes sense because adverbs describe verbs. So, what's a verb in the sentence? The word "going" is a verb. Now, look for the word that describes WHERE we're going. The answer is "out"! Let's try another one!

We're going out tomorrow to see if we can find any good carving pumpkins. (clue: There's another adverb in this sentence that answers the question "when?")

We already answered the question of where we're going. Now we can answer the question of when we're going. The answer is "tomorrow"! Let's try one last example.

The little boy waited patiently for his mom to finish talking on the phone before he asked for candy. (clue: This adverb answers the question "how?")

Again, look for a verb. Most sentences have more than one, so just start at the beginning and see what you can find. I see the verb "waited". How did the boy wait? The answer is "patiently". That's an adverb that answers the question "how?"

For your language work, I want you to find FIVE sentences in your independent reading book that contain adverbs and for each one tell me if the adverb answers the question where, when or how. Copy the sentence onto a piece of paper, circle the adverb and write where, when or how above it. If you have questions or need help, ask me before Friday! I'll be checking it then!

Language Work - Subjects and Predicates

Since most of you are spending lots of time during your independent reading intervention working on responses, and since you did such a great job with prepositions, we're going to add some language work to your weekly independent reading assignments. Sounds fun, right?! Let's get to it!

On your language pretest, almost everyone bombed the subject and predicate sections, which we all pretty much knew would happen since we've never talked about any of that before. So let's talk about it, shall we?!

I bet I know what your first questions are: What is a subject? What is a predicate? Simply put, a subject is what (or whom) the sentence is about. The predicate tells something about the subject - usually the action of the sentence.

Here, watch this School House Rock video and you'll see what I mean:

 
Mr. Morton was the subject of all of the sentences in that song. The various things he did were the predicates of each sentence. Need more help understanding? Watch this short prezi: http://prezi.com/_af1oxhxetzw/subjects-and-predicates/

Your assignment for the week is to identify the subject and predicate of five sentences from your independent reading book. It should look like this:

 

Just simply write the sentence out and then circle the subject and underline the predicate. Do that with five sentences and you're done! Check in with me throughout the week if you have questions or just want to see if you're doing it correctly. Have fun! :)