Newsletter Week 7 Term 4
Sawyers Bay School 1st December 2022
Principal's Message
Kia ora koutou,
What an amazing week we have had with Activity Modules running in the afternoons. The kids have been able to choose from a huge selection of activities including slot car building, photography, writer's workshop, sport, clay creations, cooking, Christmas crafts, art and more! A massive thank you to the many helpers that have been able to make it all possible for our kids.
A quick reminder that next Friday is our final assembly for the year. This is a time where we come together and help to celebrate our Year 6 leavers as they move on to their next adventure. As it can take a bit longer than a normal assembly, we do start a little earlier at 1.45pm.
Mā te wā,
Gareth Swete
Upcoming Events
- NO Subway available to order - Friday 2nd December
- Final Assembly - 1.45pm Friday 9th December
- Final Day of Term 4 - 1pm Thursday 15th December
Assembly Certificates
Te Ākonga o te Wiki
NO Subway available to order - Friday 2 December
Subway will return on Friday 9 December and will be our final order for the year.
Papatūānuku
Kia ora whanau!
This week we have all enjoyed our first Activity Module. I’m sure your child has told you about their particular activity as every afternoon has been an exciting opportunity to try something different or something that has sparked an interest. We’ve ended each day with a sharing circle, discussing our highlights from the afternoon’s activity.
In our classroom, some of us have been playing a variety of board games, learning how to play chess, and enjoying the opportunity to play games with children from classes other than our own. We’ve also all had the opportunity to make Steampunk Creations using a wonderful variety of metals and plastics that may have otherwise gone to waste.
On Wednesday Papatūānuku welcomed a group of visiting teachers and tamariki from Koputai Early Childhood Centre. It’s always lovely to spend time with tamariki who are soon to start in our school, and also strengthen the bridge of transition between Early Childhood and school. You would have been very proud of your child, because each and every one of our Papatūānuku class members displayed awesome school values as they welcomed the visitors, showed them where to put their belongings, took the visitors alongside them as they all completed our Literacy Rotations and outdoor activities. I was super proud of them all.
Rīpoata na Mrs Campbell
Hine-Rau-Whārangi
Talofa, Mālō e lelei, Kia ora, Hello
It has been an amazing week, the children have been finishing up their careers topic, with a focus on writing and art. At the moment we are working on a collaborative work piece that has art, math and a technology component to it. This is slowly beginning to grow and we are hoping we have it up and running by the end of the week. See the picture below to guess what you think it might be. We measured Spotty Dot this morning and found out that he had doubled in size this week, when it was 2 centimeters and today it was 5 centimeters. Spotty dot is certainly chomping through the swan plant after jumping off it twice last week.
We have especially enjoyed doing our Arts rotations with such a variety of fun activities, we have shared some of these below
I have enjoyed planting swan plants, so we can get more caterpillars at school (Liam P)
I am making christmas decorations and it is real fun (Liam B)
I have been making stuff with metal in steampunk. You get metal scraps and glue it all together to make a dog and christmas decorations (Stan)
I like creating with clay and painting it with slip and paints in clay creations (Willow)
Just a friendly reminder if you have any School Library and Reading books at home sneakily hiding away, it would be great for them to make their way back to school.
Rīpoata na Mrs Brewer
Tāwhirimātea
This week we were very lucky to have had Joy Cowley read us a story and answer lots of questions about her job as an author. We found out that writing a story is a bit like running a race. It's good to start off fast (with an action or speech) however sometimes in a race we run past the finish line, in writing it's good to go back and see where the finish line (end of the story) should have been. We learnt that her stories are often inspired by real life events such as when her cat jumped up and ate half a block of butter (What does Greedy Cat Like), or when her cat got stuck in the cat flap (Greedy Cat’s Door), or memories of her mother bathing her in a big metal tub (Mrs Wishy-Washy). We especially loved when Joy Cowley answered one of our questions about how and why she got her job. It was fascinating to hear that she was offered a job as a journalist but women weren't supposed to do jobs like that so her parents forced to work as an assistant in a pharmacy instead. It took her quite a while before she became a published author but she felt her job in the pharmacy helped teach her discipline and structure which she feels are important skills for writers - especially when it comes to editing.
This week we spotted an old pallet outside school and have decided to repurpose it! We are turning it into a Christmas tree. Firstly we planned out our design, then we got the saws out and cut the pallet into shape. Next we are going to paint our christmas tree and then finally we will decorate it to make it look festive - this is also our homework over the next week (see notice that came home on Wednesday).
A HUGE highlight of our week this week has been activity modules. We have all loved taking part in activities that we chose. Here are what we have to say about them:
Clay creations - We are making our own decorations out of clay that will be painted and fired in the Kiln.
Sports - We have had great fun playing games such as 2 ball soccer, capture the flag, indoor hockey (with a blindfold!), parachute, hide n seek tag and dodgeball.
Art- we have been busy making some stencils to paint designs onto bags and paper.
Christmas crafts - we have been making Christmas trees with paper plates, paint, pom poms and ribbon.
Slot cars- we are building our very own slot car tracks and scenes.
Steampunk - we were given a tin can and lots of bits n’ bobs that were lying around to create our very own creatures.
Rīpoata na Tāwhirimātea
Ranginui
Kia Ora
This week in Ranginui the students have been sharing their talents or hobbies with the class. The students have presented videos of their talent, drawings, sewing, arts and crafts, trophies, and a cool demonstration of DJing. Everyone has spoken with pride and confidence. We can’t wait to hear the rest of the class share. Yesterday we joined a video link with Joy Cowley and learned so much about this amazing author. We all love reading her books, which school has many of. Maths this week has been fun! We had to use our money skills to create ice creams. Each part of the ice cream was a certain amount using notes and coins. Our school wide modules began this week and will continue next week. The students have all shared their excitement and how much fun they had.
Ka Kite
Rīpoata na Miss Ruzsa
Hinemoana
Our self-portraits depicting us in our dream jobs are really taking shape. All that is left is to add a few final details like dye (and maybe some glitter) then we will be ready to show them off at assembly on Friday. If you can make it along, I know the children would absolutely love to have you there to see their work.
We have completed one full week of activity modules already, with the children participating in activities like sport, Christmas crafts, gardening, photography and cooking / baking. In our baking group we made scones with cream and jam, bread with hummus and chocolate truffles. We also made little gift bags and cards to go with our truffles so we could share our yummy treats with others. You can see the baking group in action in the pictures below.
Lastly, on Wednesday morning we joined Tāne Mahuta for a zoom session Q&A with New Zealand author Joy Cowley. And, what an enriching Q&A it was! Joy shared how ideas for writing grow inside you and that she believes writing is a form of art, “you are painting with words to evoke feeling.” As you write , ask yourself, ‘how are these words and sentences giving you a feeling for meaning?’ Alongside this we learnt some valuable tips for writing and I am looking forward to giving these tips a go in the classroom.
Use speech and action for your introductions in writing to make it more interesting
Use different sentence lengths to create impact and meaning
Keep editing! Writing is like working on a painting or sculpture, keep rewriting your work.
Rīpoata na Miss Laing
Tāne Mahuta
Area and Perimeter has been our math focus recently in Tāne Mahuta. Over last week we started by building up our knowledge of these concepts and using them in different ways to practise our new skills. This week we have added on and we are in the swing of completing an area and perimeter project using our new knowledge. We have been set the task of designing a dog yard and placing appropriate dog accessories inside it - some which are provided and two of our own choice. We have had to work out the perimeter and the area of our dog yard as well as justify our design choices and why we have chosen the shape that we have. We have also had to justify our choice of accessories and the placement of these accessories within our yard. It has been very interesting to see all of the different ideas that different people in the class have come up with for their dog yards. We are onto the final stages of this project now and should have these completed by the end of the week. We are then going to compare and contrast our yards and try to work out the perimeters and areas of some of our class members' dog yards! We have enjoyed bringing a design aspect into our maths this week and thinking outside the box.
Also - a big thank you to all the teachers and kids who have put in a huge effort with activity modules this week. There have been a lot of smiley faces and fun stories to tell from these different experiences. The children that came to Christmas Crafts have been awesome, they got involved and have tried super hard. They have finished this first module with some fantastic paper plate Christmas trees with fun decorations! Ka pai kids.
Rīpoata na Miss Tenci
Sports News
This Week's results:
Touch Rugby
SBS Force 5-4 W POD Ella
Futsal
SBS Stars 7-0 W POD Emerson
SBS Spurs 8-2 W POD Oliver
SBS Sparks defaulted to, played own game POD Donnie
SBS Steamers 6-3 W POD Maddie
SBS Sweepers defaulted to, played own game POD Asher & Ida
A friendly reminder to please check the school app prior to your futsal game day for the match draw, to ensure your child arrives on time and doesn't leave their team short of players. Thank you.
A few pics from Activity Modules
Community Notices
Contact Us
Email: office@sawyersbay.school.nz
Website: https://sawyersbay.school.nz/
Location: Sawyers Bay School 99 Stevenson Ave, Sawyers Bay, Dunedin 9023, New Zealand
Phone: 03 472 8981