Newsletter Week 9 Term 2
Sawyers Bay School 30th June 2022
Principal's Message
Mānawatia a Matariki!
I hope that you all enjoyed your very first Matariki holiday. It is so great to have a holiday that is local, focuses on family and connection, and didn't we have some amazing clear skies to star gaze into. Did you know that even before Matariki shows up in the night sky, we see Puaka (Puanga to the North Islanders and top of the South, or Rigel to astronomers) in the sky to signal the start of a new year and a chance to reflect on the past. As a blue supergiant, it is also easier to spot as it's the brightest star in the Orion's belt constellation (the pot). See if you can spot it in the early mornings.
By the end of today, most of our classes would have made their way to the Art Gallery for a wrap up of our "Telling Tales, myths and legends' topic of inquiry. It is a great way to top off a very engaging topic that the kids have thoroughly enjoyed. Thank you to the adults who have helped out with supervision, we always appreciate your input.
Mā te wā,
Gareth Swete
Upcoming Events
- Thursday 30th June - Art Gallery Visit Hine-Rau-Whārangi and Hinemoana
- Friday 8th July - Art Gallery Visit Tāwhirimātea and Ranginui
- Friday 8th July - last day of Term 2
- Monday 25th July - first day of Term 3
Junior Syndicate Matariki Breakfast
Papatūānuku
Our highlight of the week was right at the start of the week when we had a Matariki Breakfast with the rest of the Junior Team. We ate wheetbix, fruit and a drink of milo. We talked with the person beside us about what we did in the Matariki Weekend.
We have been learning about the Matariki stars. They all have different names and represent different things. We wrote on little stars about our goals for this year, and what we were thankful for. We finished our Matariki Kites. They flew up onto the walls overnight and look fabulous in our class. At Mathematics time we are learning about cutting sandwiches into halves and quarters. Thank you parents, for giving us sandwiches or wraps in our lunch that were cut in halves and quarters as it really helped us see our learning in real life. Today we continued learning about sharing things out equally. Our story was about four bears going on a picnic together. In the picnic basket there were lots of different items like carrot sticks, cupcakes, apples and even a bag of smarties. We used items from around our classroom to represent these things, then worked with a buddy to share them out equally between the four bears. There was a trick - there were 6 cupcakes to be shared between 4 bears. But clever Papatūānuku kids worked it out!
We really enjoyed our trip to the Art Gallery last week. Thank you so much to the parents and grandparents who came with us and helped us to keep safe and have fun. We looked at pictures around the art gallery, acted out the Three Little Pigs story, played some musical bells, then we went to the classroom and made our own piece of art. We stamped patterns and shapes using white paint on black paper. We made a villain. We then had to name our villain! It was so much fun at the Art Gallery.
Report by Papatūānuku
Hine-Rau-Whārangi
Mālō e lelei, kia ora, bula, hello
What a great learning week it has been in Hine-Rau-Wharangi, after our Matariki long weekend it was great having a shared breakfast with Tawhirimatea and Papatuanuku on Monday morning, then it was back to Hine-Rau-Wharangi to share with each other and write about our experiences of the weekend.
We had takeaways and ate them outside underneath the Matariki Stars (Herepo)
I went to the light show and had ice cream. (Willow)
We went to the Kaka point beach and looked at the stars (Isaac)
At night time we hopped into the spa to look at the stars (Rex)
In Math we have been busy working at our, counting on and skip counting strategies doing a variety of activities. The children had a farm template and their task was to draw animals inside of the pen, they then had to work out how many legs were in their pens and show their workings of how they got to the total answer to their problem showing their mathematical knowledge.
Report by Mrs Brewer
Tāwhirimātea
This week began with all of the juniors having a lovely Matariki reflection breakfast together. While we sat and enjoyed our weet-bix, fruit salad and milos, we chatted about how we spent our Matariki weekend. It was so humbling to hear all of the stories which were filled with family, fun and adventure. This week Tāwhirimātea are sharing in assembly so we have been busy finishing off our Little Kiwi Matariki art and writing recounts of the story. Below is a wee sneak peek of some of our amazing artworks. I love that the children were so inspired by the story and its illustrations, they were keen to add extra elements to their artworks. Many spent extra time creating their own individualized details. This has made each artwork unique and represents what each of us thought was important in the story . We have been busy looking at 3 digit numbers in Mathematics this week. The children have been learning about adding larger numbers by grouping the ones, tens and hundreds together. We will continue to work on this over the next week. Another picture included below shows one of our reading groups trying out ‘dip pens’. We read a story about pens and pencils and found the idea of dip pens rather intriguing - so we gave them a whirl! This is something Tāwhirimātea might have to experiment with a little more as we begin to learn about linking in handwriting!
Report by Mrs Swete
Ranginui
Kia Ora from Ranginui
What a wonderful way we started this week, together as a class/whanau group, with a Matariki breakfast. Ranginui work so well together, so to share kai and take a moment to share what we are grateful for was heartwarming. We all helped each other with preparing the food and reading a karakia blessing our day.
Our learning over the week has been focussed on Matariki stars and their meanings and influences on the coming year. The children have talked about their past experiences, created wordart about their present strengths and family that support them. We will continue our learning by looking at our futures.
Thank you to everyone who has offered to come on our art gallery trip next Friday. (last day of term) I’ll be in touch to confirm bus times etc. Please keep in touch with any updates on your child. joslynr@sawyersbay.school.nz
Report by Miss Ruzsa
Hinemoana
In Hinemoana we are beginning to create our very own fairytale, myth or legend stories. Our first job was to decide upon a main character and setting. Then we had to think of a problem our character was to encounter and a solution to this problem. The children have some very creative ideas and soon we will be putting our plans into successful sentences to write our stories. From there we will carefully edit our work before publishing.
For Matariki we have learnt more about Hiwa-i-te-rangi (Hiwa - vigorous growth and i-te-rangi - in the sky). Hiwa-i-te-rangi is the star that represents the future and abundance. People send their goals, aspirations and wishes to this star in the hope that they will come true. We all made wishes for ourselves and for our whānau. We also learnt a kaikōhau, meaning to express your hopes and desires. It is a way of asking for good things to come into your life. A kaikōhau can be said at any time of the year (not just at Matariki!) when you are welcoming all things that are good and wishing for them to be plentiful.
Nau mai ngā hua (welcome all things that have grown)
Nau mai ngā pai (welcome all things that are good)
Nau mai kia nui
Kia hāwere ai (may they be plentiful and abundant)
We are continuing to use the story, The Seven Kites of Matariki. This time using it as inspiration for a STEAM challenge to design and create our own Matariki kites (that will hopefully fly!) So far we have come up with some super cool designs and we are looking forward to creating and testing our kites.
Report by Miss Laing
Tāne Mahuta
What an awesome trip to the Art Gallery it was for Tane Mahuta last week on Friday! We were able to make some great links to New Zealand and Dunedin myths, legends and fairytales which connected with our topic for this term. We even heard a legend about Harbour Cone and the way that Harbour Cone got its maori name “Hereweka” which means “to catch weka”. We went on to make awesome “scratch pastel” artwork in the art classroom with crayons and pastels. These artworks were to represent an important landscape to us, with inspiration pulled from the Harbour Cone legend we were told about on our way around the Art Gallery. We combined and contrasted hot and cold colours to make them pop! These are soon to be displayed on our classroom walls at school. Kia pai to mahi Tane Mahuta!
Report by Miss Tenci
Community Notices
Sawyers Bay School Board Elections
Nominations are open for the election of 5 parent representatives to the school board.
All eligible voters will receive a nomination form. Use this form to nominate yourself or someone in your community. You will also receive a nomination cover letter calling for nominations. Information on who is not eligible to be a board member is provided with the nomination form.
If you need more nomination forms, please contact the school office.
Nominations close at noon on 3 August. You may provide a signed candidate statement and photograph with your nomination.
The electoral roll is held at the school and can be viewed during normal school hours.
As nominations are received, there will be a list of candidates’ names kept at the school up until election day, which you can view.
Voting closes at 4pm on 7 September.
Kyla Martyn
Returning Officer
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