(upbeat music) Good morning, kiddos.

I'm so excited you're joining me and I am so pumped to read you a book about one of my favorite animals in the whole world.

This book is called Sammy's School of Sloths.

It's written by Michelle Padgett and it's illustrated by Jamie Walters.

Hi, everyone.

I'm Sammy.

I'm going to tell you some really cool stuff about sloths.

Did you know that sloths live in Central and South America?

To regulate our body temperature, we must live in warmer climates.

If we lived in cooler climates, we would get really cold.

Sloths live in trees like monkeys.

But we are actually more closely related to armadillos and anteaters.

Can you believe that?

Sloths are very strong.

As soon as a baby sloth is born, they can pull themselves up into a tree with one arm.

In fact, sloths are three times stronger than the average human.

Did you know that we also have one extra vertebrae in our necks?

This gives us the ability to turn our heads almost all the way around.

There are two main species of sloths, the three toed sloth and the two toed sloth.

Two toed sloths are a little bit bigger.

Because of the color of their fur, three toed sloths look like they're smiling all the time.

Can you guess which one I am?

Sloths have very long claws that make it hard to walk on the ground, but they help us move through the trees and water.

Sloths are the slowest moving mammal in the world.

As a matter of fact, we move so slowly that algae grows on our fur.

So we may look a little green, but that helps us hide in the trees better.

Sloths are pretty shy and we get stressed out by people.

So if you see us in the wild, please keep your distance.

Thanks for letting me school you all about sloths.

The end.

Wasn't that an awesome book about sloths?

I learned so many incredible facts.

I always thought they were just really cute, but they're really interesting too.

Let's think.

What were some of those facts we learned about the sloths?

Well, one of the ones that I learned that I didn't know is that sloths are three times stronger than humans.

And I have that fact written right here on this piece of paper.

I'm going to add it over here to my board, because that's a fact that I think is very important about sloths.

They're three times stronger than a human.

Hmm.

What was one of the other facts we learned?

I know that sloths live in trees.

So I'm going to add that one there as well.

I also learned that sloths move very, very slow.

In fact, they move so slow that sometimes algae grows on their fur.

And then I also learned one more fact, and that is that they live in Central and South America.

Unfortunately, they don't live here in North America, where we live.

Now, those are some really cool facts about sloths, but I happen to know another sloth fact.

They are incredible swimmers.

They can swim better than almost any animal, which is kind of surprising considering that they move really slow when they're in the tree and on land.

I once watched a video about baby sloths that were living in a sanctuary.

A sanctuary is a place where they take sloths that are, maybe need a little bit of help.

They might be sick and they keep them safe there.

Well, the keepers there had to give all the baby sloths a bath, and the baby sloths did not like it at all They fussed and they whined the whole time.

And when they got finished, they hung those sloths out by their tiny little claws on a line to dry, just like we hang out laundry on the line to dry.

And as a reward for getting those baths done, the sloths were given hibiscus flowers, which is like chocolate.

They love those so much.

We learned some incredible facts all about sloths.

I want you guys to go out and write your own informational text all about those facts as well as maybe some other facts that you can learn about on your own.

And I hope you'll come back for more learning with me on Arkansas PBS Rise and Shine.

(upbeat music) More ways to show off what we know.

Let's show 'em.

Science and reading skills, math and art, color wheels.

Let's go to class.

It's a blast!

You're a great student so we know that you can do it.

Rise and shine.

Get up off your feet.

Ah, ooo, ooo.

It's time to rise and shine.