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Animal Themes
Endangered Animals Theme Unit
Mammals
 Sloths

Sloths
Reading Level
     edHelper's suggested reading level:   grades 4 to 6
     Flesch-Kincaid grade level:   6.39

Vocabulary
     challenging words:    digest, locomotion, socialize, upside-down, digestive, tropical, homeland, canopy, hence, entire, species, fate, rate, thus, vegetation, swimmers
     content words:    South America

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     Spanish: Los Perezosos

Sloths   
1     In the tropical rain forests of Central and South America, there lives the world's slowest moving mammal - the sloth. Tree dwellers, sloths carry out pretty much every activity in a suspended position high in the canopy. That's right! Sloths eat, rest, give birth, raise their young, and sleep upside-down in trees. They climb down to the ground only to use the bathroom (about once a week) or to find a different tree. So, exactly how slow do sloths move?
 
2     When sloths are in trees, their average speed is merely 360-480 feet per hour. In the case of an emergency, sloths can "accelerate" to 900 feet per hour. When sloths are on the ground, they move awkwardly and cover just 52.80 feet per hour!
 
3     Aside from the fact that sloths move no faster than a snail, they are also very inactive. They spend more than three-quarters of a day resting and sleeping. Thus, sloths can barely travel 125 feet in an entire day! Surprisingly, as slow and inactive as sloths are, they are pretty good swimmers.

Paragraphs 4 to 7:
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