October 15, 2021
Dear Saxe Family,
What a week to Celebrate Saxe! Thank you to everyone who made our 2021 campaign such a huge success! This week in the Saxe Weekly, we take a look at lots of celebrations, the first ever Hawks Talk podcast, the latest one second everyday, Kid Governor, a safety tip from our SRO, Officer Deak, ELA, our Saxe cafeteria, outdoor learning, extracurricular activities, Saxe News is back!, Science, Orchestra, our Charter in action, “caught caring”, community updates, dogs of Saxe, and much more. Enjoy and have a wonderful weekend!
Be Well,
Dave Gusitsch
Principal, Saxe Middle School
*Quotes that resonated with us this week:
“If not us, who? If not now, when?” – John F. Kennedy
“The expert in anything was once a beginner.” – Helen Hayes
“The power for creating a better future is contained in the present moment: You create a good future by creating a good present.” – Eckhart Tolle
“The most wasted of days is one without laughter.” – E. E. Cummings
“It doesn’t matter how great your shoes are if you don’t accomplish anything in them.” – Martina Boone
Celebrate Saxe!
WOW! would be an understatement in describing the 2021 Celebrate Saxe Campaign! Below, and throughout the 10/15 Saxe Weekly, you will see just how much our students (and, staff) got to truly celebrate this week. Celebrate Saxe allows our staff to dream big and our PTC helps those dreams come true. Thank you to everyone who makes this all possible!
The below message just went out from our PTC and captures the week nicely!
“Wow! What a great week we had with our Celebrate Saxe campaign! Looking back, we had a great Spirit Day on Monday, and on Tuesday and Wednesday the students were treated to a fantastic Mentalist, Kent Axell, who mesmerized and inspired with his fascinating talents. A true sign of Creativity! We also got to see kids “Caught Caring at Saxe” as the picture below shows. And we wrapped up another Spirit Day listening to music and sharing popsicles on the playground during recess. It really was a fun week!
We also shared our initial plans for the Outdoor Learning Project. We will continue to update the Saxe community as plans progress both on the website (https://www.saxeptc.org/outdoor_learning) and via email.”
For anyone wanting to participate, please see another note from our PTC below:
“What you invest in CELEBRATE SAXE comes back to you through the enriched experiences given to all the students. The Saxe PTC appreciates donations of any amount! Our goal is to have every family support our campaign.” For anyone still wanting to participate, please feel free to donate by clicking here. With that being said, thank you!
Here is a quick sample of what our students and staff feel about Saxe being caring, creative, and a wonderful place to celebrate! Enjoy…
Thank you to Mr. Petrakopoulos for helping us capture and share these moments!
Here is another video showing many of the great, fun moments of Celebrate Saxe this week!
Special Thanks
A HUGE shout out to our Celebrate Saxe Co-Chairs. Julia Passios and Beth Rosen for all of their hard work and innovation for a fabulous Celebrate Saxe 2021 campaign!
Snapshots from Celebrate Saxe 2021!
Lots of great spirit around Saxe today as we kick off Celebrate Saxe 2021! Here are a few from early this week…
Selfie/photo frames, poster making, and a beautiful day were all part of the kickoff to Celebrate Saxe today! Some great quotes and wonderful school spirit during the official launch. Thanks to ALL of our Saxe PTC volunteers who planned and helped out!
Our Saxe Hawks mascot was a huge hit during the official launch of our Celebrate Saxe campaign today! I even felt compelled to join in for a quick pic…
Check out the Saxe Hawk firing up the Celebrate Saxe crowd by shooting the rock and draining it from “downtown”! Check out the video!
Check out Episode 1.1 of Hawks Talk podcast as we kick off Celebrate Saxe! Tune in to hear from our Saxe PTC co-prez and Celebrate Saxe co-chair chat with our Dean of Students, Jonathan Adams. Nice work and thank you!
Can the Saxe Hawk Dance? 
Thank you to our awesome Saxe PTC for the amazing virtual assemblies for our 5th & 6th graders today! Another exciting offering for our students as we continue Celebrate Saxe week!
Thanks to our Saxe PTC for helping make Celebrate Saxe such a fun experience for our students! Pretty unbelievable seeing a “virtual magic show” be so engaging!
Thank you to all of our parent volunteers who helped make this week a fun one! Here are just a few who helped with popsicles during recess today!
One Second Everyday
Back again for this week – the latest Saxe Middle School 1-Second Everyday! “Life is made of seconds.” Showcasing so much of what makes Saxe Middle School great! This will be a recurring, bi-weekly feature. At the end of the year, we will have a full version that includes every single day of the 2021-22 school year. Enjoy! (pro tip: to enjoy the video at a slower pace, change your viewing option to .75 speed).
Grade 5 Social Studies
Each year in 5th grade social studies our students have the opportunity to participate in the CT Kid Governor program. Interested students choose an issue, create a platform and run as a Saxe candidate for the very real role of CT Kid Governor. This week we celebrate all of our grade 5 students who are trying to make a difference in their community. We are proud of each of you.
We want to congratulate Cannon Nardini, from Mrs. Campbell’s class who is our Saxe nominee. Cannon will advance to the state to be considered for the general election in November! Our 7 finalists in the Saxe primary were (in alphabetical order); Anushka Dave, Declan Flaherty-Lovy, Adam Khattak, Avery Preston, Mateo Rodriguez, Medha Singhania, and Sam Vandall. Congratulations to all!
It was awesome to see Cannon’s classmates celebrate his nomination, virtually and in-person!
Here are some photos of the Kid Governor events this week:
These students are viewing the Past Candidates’s Exhibit in the Bridge Pop-up Gallery.
Jake Tirana was our Saxe Nominee last year!
Officer Deak’s Safety Tip
When dropping students off in the morning, please remember to use the designated dropoff areas. By doing this it alleviates potential pedestrian safety issues. It is also important to remind your children to cross in designated pedestrian crosswalks. When children do not cross where they are supposed to, oncoming traffic will not see them. We appreciate everyone partnering to keep our students safe on campus and off!
Grade 6 ELA
Kiki Horsburgh gave Ms. Taylor’s 8th period LA class a bonus “First Chapter Friday,” by reading the first chapter of her original book, Shipwreck on Cat Island, to her classmates. After the reading, students were offered the opportunity to be the first to borrow the book by placing their names in a random drawing. There were multiple students who wanted first crack, but only one lucky winner. Fortunately, Kiki will continue to loan the book out to her peers throughout the year.
Saxe Cafeteria
We are so fortunate to have such an amazing & dedicated cafeteria staff at Saxe! Thank you to Monika & her team for all they do for our students & staff! I am pretty sure my middle school lunch experience was nothing like this…
Tweet Street
Today Celebrate Saxe 2021 was launched with much excitement, but there were still classes going on and many took advantage of the beautiful weather to get outside!
After school programs are back up and running full steam! Ms. Duncan and her Saxe Art students took advantage of the beautiful weather and brought the action outside!
After school programs are back up and running full steam at @SaxeMS… I enjoyed listening to Ms. Birdsall and her #SaxeSTEM students discuss some exciting plans for this session! Ms. Benware & Ms. Sheehan also had a full crew for Minecraft & computers! #SaxeClubs
Our Saxe SRO, Officer Deak, took advantage of the nice weather by holding the weekly Leadership Club outside in one of our courtyard spaces. Great lesson on public speaking today!
Saxe News is back! Thanks to Mr. Petrakopoulos and our students for creating a way to share many of the great goings on around our school!
Caught Mr. Petrakopoulos running the camera for interviews on the 2021 CT Kid Governor program! Stay tuned for updates later in the week and the announcement of our Saxe winner!
A couple more of our digital message boards have gone online around the school. Thanks to our Saxe Tech team for helping us share important information, timely topics, and celebrate our learning community!
Morning arrival always brings exciting opportunities to take some fun photos! Have a great day, All!
Checking on the G8 Science Workshop plants in the Saxe Greenhouse and in the classroom… I learn something new each time – today I learned these are the plants that canola oil comes from. Students continue to make observations and collect data on the Brassica Rapa plants as they grow and move through the different developmental stages (life cycle) of a plant. Students learned about the anatomy of a flower and the importance of symbiotic relationships between plants and their pollinators. We used “bee sticks” in order to cross-pollinate and fertilize the flowers. The fertilized flowers have since developed into fruits (seed pods), which will be harvested and grown by future Workshop classes. This data will offer insights into the outcomes of genetic crosses.”
Orchestra students participate in “bow hold relays” recently. Learning fundamentals and having fun along the way! It’s wonderful to hear music being played!
Charter in Action
Ms. Dobransky’s class made a digital quilt of what our charter words look like, sound like, feel like. They shared their quilt squares individually, and they were compiled into a large digital quilt that is being used as the background to her Google Classroom for Workshop and Writing. We love how it came out!
And, Ms. Bohlmann shared some student creations from the EI lessons in 6Blue this week:
Celebrating Birthdays
Every once in a while at arrival, we hear, “it’s their birthday!”. This week, that happened a couple of times and we love to celebrate special days!
T-shirts of Saxe
We always enjoy seeing the funny, punny t-shirts around Saxe!
Around Saxe
Officer Deak takes a moment to catch up with one of his favs…
The “Saxe Mantis” was back during 6th-grade recess today! Students were excited & definitely enjoy seeing our state insect visiting our campus…
“Who is going to get “Caught” today for #CelebrateSaxe. Let’s grow this board and enjoy some popsicles our at recess thanks to our SaxePTC”
We caught Mr. White caring! Who will be next?
Community
NCBA TRAVEL BASKETBALL IS BACK!
REGISTER NOW at www.ncbahoops.org
If your child loves basketball, register to tryout today! The NCBA is a competitive travel basketball program for New Canaan boys and girls in grades 3-8. NCBA teams compete in the Fairfield County Basketball League. Teams are coached by professional coaches and assistants, as selected and trained by NCBA Coaching Directors.
BOYS: Registration deadline is October 17th. Tryouts week of October 18th.
GIRLS: Registration deadline is October 24th. Tryouts week of October 25th.
Detailed Information for all programs is available at www.ncbahoops.org
Dogs of Saxe
What a beautiful week! Here are a couple of views from around Saxe this week…
Have a great week!
* A special thanks to Lauren Sherwood for the continuous stream of positive, optimistic quotes!
Saxe Resources (live links)
Website: https://www.ncps-k12.org/saxe
Saxe Middle School
Celebrating Our Learning Community Through Caring, Communication, & Commitment
The Saxe weekly 