We had such a fabulous trip to Natural Bridges last Thursday!  Even though we were unable to explore the tide pools, we still had an incredible time learning from Ranger Pauline about monarchs, going on a hike on Monarch Trail, and playing on the beach together.  It was the perfect way to inspire us further for our Monarch Butterfly PBL.  Our driving question is, "What can we as 2nd graders at Steindorf do to educate others about the monarch butterfly population, so it keeps growing and thriving?"  This week we will come up with our deliverables and need-to-knows.  Stay tuned for more exciting updates!

In reading and writing, we will continue to work on information reading and writing skills.  Students worked on Friday with their 6th grade buddies to find information online about their subtopics for their information writing.  It was neat to see how the 6th graders used the Gemini AI tool to help the second graders find accurate, reputable websites for information.  The second graders will be able to refer back to these specific websites for information to add to their writing. In reading, we are utilizing the wealth of nonfiction books available on the Epic! website in addition to books from our classroom.  We have been learning how informational reading requires a super careful and sometimes slower pace, since our eyes and brains have to track and make sense of lots of different kinds of information on one page as it relates to a topic or subtopic.  This week, we will continue to work on categorizing information we read into subtopics and also pay extra attention to specific vocabulary that pertains to the information we are learning.  

In math, we will be learning strategies to decompose a ten to subtract two-digit numbers.  Just like in previous weeks, students are learning a variety of strategies with the goal of finding the strategy that works best for them!