Students read an excerpt from a live broadcast of "Invasion from Mars."  This play was adapted from the book "The War of the Worlds" by Orson Welles.  In the play, a news reporter, Charles Phillips, reports on a strange object that has crashed on a farm in New Jersey.  He interviews people from the crowd, and they end up witnessing some pretty unusual events!

 

     action verbs - words that tell what a person or thing does

    main verb - the verb that tells the action when a verb is more than one word

    helping verb - a verb that comes before a main verb and tells more about the action

    linking verb - a verb that tells what somone or something is or is like

Students read an informational text about movies.  They learn how directors use tricks to influence how viewers feel while they watch movies.

 

     present tense - shows action that is happening now or that happens over and over

    past tense - shows action that has already happened

    future tense - shows action that will happen

    regular verb - a verb that uses -ed to form its past tense

    irregular verb - a verb that does not add -ed to the present form to show past action

    past participle - the past-tense form of a verb

Students read a realistic fiction story about a little boy named James who visits his aunt and uncle in New York City.  James is excited to celebrate his birthday during his visit, however he is worried that Uncle Romie might ruin it when Aunt Nanette has to leave for a funeral.

 

     progressive verb tense - tells about an action that happens over a period of time

    present progressive verb tense - tells about an action happening over a period of time in

    the present

    past progressive verb tense - tells about an action that happened over a period of time in

    the past but is no longer going on

    future progressive verb tense - tells about an action that will happen over a period of

    time in the future

Students read a realistic fiction story about a girl who is writing a letter to her local librarian to apologize for a mishap that occurred while she was visiting the library.

 

 

compound sentence - a sentence that has two simple sentences joined by a comma and a connecting word such as and, or, but, or so

 

coordinating conjunction -  a word that connects other words or groups of words in a sentence (ex: and, but, or, and so)

 

dependent clause - a group of words with both a subject and a predicate that is NOT a complete sentence

 

subordinating conjunction - a word such as because, although, until, if or since that links two clauses

 

complex sentence - a sentence made up of a simple sentence and a clause joined with a subordinating conjunction 

pronoun - a word, such as he, she, or they, that takes the place of one or more nouns

reflexive pronoun - a pronoun whose antecedent is the subject of the sentence

demonstrative pronoun - a pronoun, such as this, that talks about something nearby or far away

antecedent - the noun that the pronoun replaces