2023.10.13 – Saxe Weekly – The Saxe weekly

October 13, 2023

Dear Saxe Family,

Happy Friday the 13th! And, what a beautiful day (/week) it was… Maybe we will carry a little of this nice weather into one of these weekends at some point (, please?!)? Beyond the weekend weather pattern, we have so much to be grateful for and this was on display all week as we “Celebrated Saxe” in so many fun ways.

The theme of “Just Play” is more than just a slogan and our students and staff benefited from this throughout the week. Whether it was board games at lunchtime, Celebrate Saxe themed artwork, outdoor learning, or the fascinating skills of the Harlem Magic Masters, it was a week that students and staff alike will remember for years to come! Thank you to everyone who has taken part in planning, coordinating, facilitating, or participating in any way. Our school community has rallied and our parent participation in Celebrate Saxe has been remarkable – thank you, again!

This week in the Saxe Weekly, we take a look at Celebrate Saxe, Science, STEM, EI, Yearbook, NC Combine, some birthdays, Leadership Team, Empower Your Lunch Hour, Saxe Spirit, Saxe Clubs, Library, Dogs of Saxe, and SO much more. Enjoy and have a wonderful weekend!

Be Well,

Dave Gusitsch

Principal, Saxe Middle School

Upcoming Noteworthy Dates:

10/16 – 10/20 – National Bus Safety Week

*Quotes that resonated with us this week:

“Yesterday’s the past, tomorrow’s the future, but today is a gift. That’s why it’s called the present.”— Bil Keane

“If you look at what you have in life, you’ll always have more. If you look at what you don’t have in life, you’ll never have enough. -Oprah Winfrey

“The best way to predict your future is to create it.” — Abraham Lincoln

“You will face many defeats in life, but never let yourself be defeated.” -Maya Angelou

“You have brains in your head. You have feet in your shoes. You can steer yourself any direction you choose.” — Dr. Seuss

Celebrate Saxe

Thank you to everyone who has helped make this campaign such a huge success (so far)!

From our PTC:

You can still be a part of Celebrate Saxe! What you give isn’t as important as just being a part of the effort to make a difference in the programming and resources that distinguish Saxe as one of the best middle schools around! In addition to supporting our teachers, who go above and beyond to create the best possible experience for every student, your contribution makes a big impact in the quality of your child’s education and experience at Saxe. Please click HERE to donate now or mail/bring in your check payable to Saxe PTC, to the Main Office at 468 South Avenue, New Canaan, CT 06840.
Make sure to follow us on Facebook and Instagram to see all the ways we CELEBRATE SAXE!
Thank you for making a difference!!
Co-Chairs, Celebrate Saxe

Science

Students are nearly finished with their first major design challenge in Mr. Pacicca’s STEM Workshop. Students were tasked with creating an electronic home, city, or game that responds to its environment. Using the design process, students ideated and created prototypes using materials and tools in the Fabrication lab. Students used LEDs, string lights, soldering, chibitronics, 3D printing, and more to make their designs come to life through multiple iterations. The students are now converting their real-life designs to 3D models on TinkerCAD. Amazing problem-solving by Mr. Pacicca’s workshop engineers!

Dr. Marc Brackett from the Yale Center for Emotional Intelligence will be speaking to us regarding Emotional Regulation on November 2nd, at 7:00 in the Saxe auditorium. Please join us for this free event! Dr. Brackett will be talking to us about specific strategies we can use to help our students, and ourselves, improve our well-being, competence and resilience. More details in the flier!

Yearbook

The Yearbook staff are out and about taking photos! If you would like to order a yearbook, please visit Jostens.com or you can use the QR code below that is from one of our lawn signs!

New Canaan Combine

Recently, SRO Officer Blank and 7th Grade LA teacher Ben Young competed at the New Canaan Combine. This wonderful event, hosted by Gracie’s Fund and The House of Telos, was done to raise awareness and funds for those impacted with pediatric cancer. We’re very proud of our Saxe participants, as well as our district’s elementary SRO, Officer Shane Gibson, as they did awesome! To learn more about Gracie’s Fund, click here. (Photo Credits – Andrea Ceraso)

Twitter/X

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

Thanks to our PTC for an incredible visit with Harlem Magic Makers to kick off Celebrate Saxe’s “Just Play” theme! Congratulations (CLICK THE LINK TO WATCH!) to the two winners of the “you got tricked” event as well! Saxe.

Thank you to our Saxe PTC for providing such an amazing CeleSaxe experience for our Saxe students… They fit perfectly with the “Just Play” (Click the link!) theme & these guys “brought it”, pushing the volume & fun to 10+!

Great message (Click the link to watch!) for our Saxe students during the CeleSaxe assembly – “I believe in myself!”

Crowd participation (Click the link to see!) was NOT a problem during the CeleSaxe assembly – I’m not sure the Saxe auditorium has ever seen an energy (Click the link!) level (Click to watch!) like this!

“Feel the energy”(Click the link!) before the Upper Division CeleSaxe(Click to watch!) assembly even began!

The “final showdown” of “You Got Tricked”(Click the link to watch!) with the Upper Division during the CeleSaxe assembly – congrats to the finalists!

What a day Saxe! Sports Day was celebrated by one of my loves with the BuffaloBills and our students attended the Celebrate Saxe kickoff assembly with Harlem.

Saxe Lower Division “Champs”(Click the link to watch!)during the CeleSaxe assembly!

A few shots from the CeleSaxe assembly – amazing talent on display!

Celebrate Saxes has been a huge success & we will continue to celebrate with this great student artwork that was put up this week. Thanks to our Saxe Art teachers, Saxe PTC, and every student who contributed – it has been an amazing week!

What a great way to celebrate a birthday, during the CeleSaxe assembly! Hope it was the best bday, yet!

A special birthday to start the day at Saxe today – hope it was the best one yet!

Congratulations to the 23-24 5th grade leadership team! The teachers, counselors and Ms. Granite were blown away by the 85 applicants and their heartfelt responses to our application questions! The future is bright…

Robotics days during Empower Your Lunch Hour clubs are very popular! 6th Grade Students are working with Lego Spike Prime and Vex IQ kits in the DesignLab.

Art, design and creation days during Empower Your Lunch Hour clubs are very inspiring! 6th Grade Students are creating 3D designs, virtual reality sculptures, building with planks and more in the design lab.

Caught some “Empower your lunch hour” action at Saxe this week – what a wonderful opportunity for our students!

Alright, this may be the ultimate representation of Saxe Hawks school spirit! Let’s see if anyone can top this at Saxe – the bar has been set HIGH (Click the link to watch)! (Perfect timing for CeleSaxe, too…). Nice work! (Click this link to watch it from another view!)

Awesome to see our Saxe Clubs in action! Can’t wait to see some of these great ideas “blossom”!

6Green brought their “A-Game” for the CeleSaxe “Just Play” theme this week at Saxe! (I remember playing that in the arcade for .25 cents & on Atari 2600…).

The theme of “Just Play” was all around at Saxe this week! Thanks to our amazing Saxe PTC for making CeleSaxe special!

6th-graders have been visiting the #SaxeLibrary as they work on their Ancient Egypt projects in Social Studies. Thanks to Ms. Stilwell for helping create a great environment & experience!

6Blue did an amazing job getting to know their students using “Blue Team Stats”. Neat to see the different trends & other Saxe students like to check out the board as well!

Another look at some of the cool Saxe “6Blue Stats” – great way to get to know one another!

Yearbook orders are now live at Saxe… Be sure to grab a copy for yourself to remember the 2023-24 school year!

Thanks to NCHS Courant for delivering a stack of the latest issue to Saxe this week! We love keeping up with what is going on at NCHS CT!

And, a few more #DogsOfSaxe to round out the week! Have a great weekend, All!

Finally caught a pic of Jerry “riding like a human” before Janis pushed him out of the way! Dogs of Saxe!

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 Melissa DiMeglio for the continuous stream of positive, optimistic quotes!

Saxe Resources (live links)