2023.2.3 – Saxe Weekly – The Saxe weekly

February 3, 2023

Dear Saxe Family,

Happy February! The wind is gusting and the temps are staying low, so I hope you are staying warm out there today… We had a wonderful week filled with terrific musical performances, collaboration & innovation in several content areas, and welcoming over 150 parents into our building for Daytime Open Houses (DOH). We look forward to seeing many more visiting our classrooms as we continue our DOH on Monday and Tuesday!

This week in the Saxe Weekly, we take a look at the latest 1-Second Everyday, Daytime Open House info, Mandarin, Math, ELA, Science, Valentines for Vets, National School Counselor Week, Trout Club, Yearbook, a community event, E-Sports Club, Art, Band concerts, Shark Tank progress, Saxe Hawk, and much more. Enjoy and have a wonderful weekend!

Be Well,

Dave Gusitsch

Principal, Saxe Middle School

Upcoming Noteworthy Dates:

2/5 – Daytime Open House: 7 Blue @ 8:55 am , 6 Purple @ 10:10 am, 8 Red at 11:20 am

2/6 – Daytime Open House: 7 Green @8:55 am, 6 Red @ 10:10 am, 8 Green @ 11:20 am

*Quotes that resonated with us this week:

“It is so important to get respect for what you do and at the same time give it.”– Estelle Parsons

“To be one, to be united is a great thing. But to respect the right to be different is maybe even greater.”

– Bono

“If we cannot now end our differences, at least we can help make the world safe for diversity.” – John F. Kennedy

“We all have dreams. In order to make dreams come into reality, it takes an awful lot of determination, dedication, self-discipline and effort.” – Jesse Owens

“You should feel beautiful and you should feel safe. What you surround yourself with should bring you peace of mind and peace of spirit.” – Stacy London

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 2022-23 school year. Enjoy! (pro tip: to enjoy the video at a slower pace, change your viewing option to .75 speed).

Daytime Open House Reminder

Next Monday and Tuesday, we will continue our Daytime Open House! Grade 6-8 teams will host their program within their respective team classroom area. For parents who are unable to attend during the scheduled time, slides will be made available to share the content that was covered.

Teachers will review team progress made thus far in regards to meeting local and state curriculum standards, address practices that have promoted an academically, emotionally, and physically safe learning environment, and offer an academic introduction to the 3rd marking period.

We hope that you can join us!

Monday, 2/6	Tuesday, 2/7
8:55 a.m.G7: Blue TeamPresentation in Room #113	8:55 a.m.G7: Green TeamPresentation in Room #144
10:10 a.m. G6: Purple TeamPresentation in Room #24	10:10 a.m.G6: Red TeamPresentation in Room #28
11:20 a.m. G8: Red TeamPresentation in Room #200	11:20 a.m.G8: Green Team Presentation in Room #163

Mandarin

Mandarin students researched how people celebrate Lunar New Year all over the world. Students learned from each other about various cultural traditions, food, events, etc. What a great cultural experience!

Math

Mrs. Harrington’s Math 5 Students are wrapping up their unit on Volume. Here, they are hard at work learning what units can be used to measure various attributes of 3D figures.

They also used manipulative snap cubes to determine the volume of compound 3D figures in a more tangible way. This allowed them to see that even if you rotated or rearranged the cubes, the figures still had the same volume.

Mrs. Harrington’s Math 5-6 Students are also studying geometry. Here they are curiously exploring how to decompose and rearrange 2D triangles and parallelograms to form other figures whose areas they know how to calculate to determine formulas for the areas of the triangles and parallelograms. After studying 2D concepts, they will also begin to explore how scale factors affect volume.

English Language Arts

Seventh graders are learning the elements of compare/contrast informational writing with hands-on opportunities! Here, students are comparing m&m’s and Skittles to analyze their similarities and differences to learn the strategies needed to later compare texts across mediums!

Students in seventh grade (below) collaborate on their projects in ELA class.

Students (below) in seventh grade work on “human sentences” to play with sentence structures and punctuation.

Valentines for Veterans

Saxe is participating in Congressman Himes’ Ninth Annual “Valentines for Vets” program. Student-created valentines will be delivered to local Veteran Affairs hospitals, Homes for the Brave in Bridgeport and various other veteran service organizations. We will be collecting cards until Monday, February 6th. Here are some 5th graders showing some love and making Valentine’s Day cards for our men and women in uniform serving all over the world.

Science

This week students in 8 Green science classes kicked off the Physical Science unit exploring the acceleration of a car as it goes down a ramp at different heights and with different amounts of mass added. They then used the data to calculate the car’s force. All classes compiled their data together to see the big picture of what happened as the variables were changed. Later in the unit, students will investigate various aspects of motion and force to better understand the results of this “Cars and Ramps” lab.

School Counselors Celebrate National School Counseling Week, Feb. 6–10, 2023

National School Counseling Week 2023, “School Counselors: Helping Students Dream Big,” sponsored by the American School Counselor Association (ASCA), will be celebrated from Feb. 6–10, 2023, to focus public attention on the unique contribution of school counselors within U.S. school systems and how students are different as a result of what school counselors do. National School Counseling Week highlights the tremendous impact school counselors can have in helping students achieve school success and plan for a career.

“School counselors work with all students to remove barriers to learning by addressing students’ academic concerns, career options and social/emotional skills,” said Jill Cook, ASCA executive director. “School counseling programs help to increase student achievement and provide a much-needed resource for students, parents, teachers and administrators. School counselors are integral to student success.”

As part of its celebration for National School Counseling Week, the school counselors at Saxe will be sharing information about their role with staff and broadcasting ways for students and staff to work on personal wellness and self-care. Parents or community members with specific questions or concerns about our school counseling program should contact their child’s school counselor (this information is located on PowerSchool).

In addition to our amazing school counselors, Saxe also celebrates the entire Student Support team which includes our school psychologists, school social workers, and Teen Talk counselor. We are lucky to have such a collaborative team of mental health professionals.

Trout Club

The Trout Club is excited to announce that their trout eggs have started hatching! The students are looking forward to taking expert care of them so that they can grow strong enough to be released in the Spring.

Yearbook Pre-Ordering Window Closing Soon!

Community Event

Tweet Street

Below are photos and phrases that were included on our Saxe middle school Twitter page (@SaxeMS) this week. Enjoy!

E-Sports Club is underway! This was a great, high-energy “pre-season” session as students get tuned up for upcoming competitions!

Thank you to the 80+ Saxe parents who came out for the first series of Daytime Open Houses on Monday! Tuesday will include 7Purple, 6Green, & 8Purple (full schedule below). We look forward to welcoming more families in to join us over the next week!

Winter is trying to remind us it is still “present” with a shot of snow this morning. That didn’t stop students from their morning activity (or, Ms. Orlando managing the Saxe a.m. drop-off line)

Seen in Ms. Bennett’s art room – student voice is critical to engagement. I love students’ understanding of the benefit of art education!

Good morning! It may just be a dusting, but thank you to our terrific custodial, maintenance, & New Canaan DPW teams for keeping our campus clear & safe! We are grateful & you are appreciated…

Have a great day, All.

Best wishes to our 5th & 6th graders on a great band concert this evening! 5th-graders finished in style with “Hard Rock Blues”… Congrats to all!

6th-grade kicked off their portion of the Saxe Winter Concert with a little humor before playing “Zombie Stomp”. “Why didn’t the zombie try out for the band? He didn’t have the guts…”

Joke to kick off the “Prehistoric Suite” at the Saxe Winter Concert… “Why do dinosaurs hate history? Because, they are pre-historic!” 6th-graders wrap up “Prehistoric Suite” with, “The Battle” – nicely done!

Good luck to our 7th & 8th-grade band members on their 2023 Winter Concert! Great rendition of the National Anthem to kick off the 7/8 Band concert!

Congrats to Student Conductor, Meghan, on leading a terrific performance of “Imperium” by Michael Sweeney. Great job all around!

The final performance of the evening was “The Raiders March” (aka, Raiders of the Lost Ark) & our students knocked it out of the park!

The Trout are “sprouting”! Looks like the Trout Club members are doing a great job with the latest batch. Look forward to seeing them be released in the local waterways!

Saxe Shark Tank planning & prototyping is underway in the Design Lab & Innovation space! Can’t wait to see these ideas come to life. Such an amazing (& valuable) process/experience for our students! (Saw some cool 3D-prints on display, too!).

Close to single digit temps with wind chill? No problem! This crew of Saxe students is committed to starting their day out with some fresh air and exercise – nice work!

The Saxe 8Red team has updated their bulletin board with some “Kind Conversations”! #SaxeCares #BeKind #SaxeConnects

Math and measurement in action!

Our resident raptor & Mascot, took in the sunset from way above campus this afternoon – Go Saxe Hawks!

Have a great week, see you next Friday!

Thank you to all of our Saxe Weekly contributors! Each weekly edition is an example of collaboration in action. A special thanks to Lauren Sherwood for the continuous stream of positive, optimistic quotes!

Saxe Resources (live links)