Newsletter Week 6 Term 3
Sawyers Bay School 1st September 2022
Principal's Message
Kia ora Koutou,
Happy Spring today, and it has certainly been great to see kids outside enjoying the weather.
I would like to welcoem Katrin to Ranginui and SBS this week, we are thrilled to have you and your whanau with us Katrin!
Congratulations to our O'Mathalon teams from last Thursday who represented the school with energy and positivity. You can check out a couple of videos below to see the O'Mathalon in action.
On behalf of the PTA, a big thank you already to our community for the amazing efforts on the PTA raffle sales already. We cannot believe how quickly the raffle cards are flying out the door.
Good luck to our Otago Champs Cross Country Runners tomorrow, Luca, Beau, Rhys, Olivia, Anja, Liam M and Maddison. We know that you will make us proud!
Mā te wā,
Gareth Swete
Upcoming Events
- Tuesday 6th & Wednesday 7th September - School Photos
- Tuesday 20th - Friday 23rd September - Year Six School Camp
O'Mathalon 2022
Last week, a Year 5 and a Year 6 team from Sawyers Bay School got to compete in the O’Mathalon at the Edgar Centre. Think maths combined with athletics - lots of thinking and lots of running! Both groups did a great job working together as a team and answering some tricky questions. Here are some pics and videos from our day:
Certificates Week 5 Term 3
Te Akonga o te Wiki
Papatūānuku
This week we have enjoyed having a theme each day. The first day was a story about a Genie who lived in a teapot. We made our own genies and wrote stories about them. The next day we learned about Dinosaurs. We worked together to complete a floor puzzle and followed instructions to make a paper dinosaur. Today we started learning to tell the time. We played a game of What’s the Time Wolf? Then we learned to tell the time to the hour. We have started making our own clocks. We are looking forward to having Miss Richardson teach us over the next few weeks. She has got very fun learning activities planned!
Report by Mrs Campbell
Hine-Rau-Whārangi
Mālō e lelei, kia ora, talofa, hello
This week we took the opportunity to do some learning outside with our new Math game add em up, went outside with our dice and chalk and drew out a 3x3 grid and circles. Next we threw the dice nine times and filled in our grid and had to add up all the numbers down, across and on the diagonal and put the totals into the corresponding circles. Lastly we could only add any of the double numbers in the circles to get an answer, for example18 once we got the answer the children had to show how many different ways we could make 18. We have also been experimenting with a polaroid camera taking photos of each other doing different things and are going to use these over the coming weeks for writing prompts. Once we are finished with these your children will be able to bring their polaroid photo home.
This week you will have also seen that your child has brought home a Reading log and reading books. It is to keep a record of your child's reading and for you to write a comment.
Pictures below are Polaroids captured of our learning.
Report by Mrs Brewer
Tāwhirimātea
This week we are learning all about homophones. We know that homo means ‘same’ and phone means ‘sound’. Homophones are words that sound the same but are spelt differently and have different meanings such as hair, here and hare. You will see many more examples of these when our poem books come home on Friday. It has been so lovely hearing the Tāwhiri children discussing how their math homework (100 or bust game) has been going this week- it sounds like there have been some good family battles. Some children have asked for more copies of the score recording sheets - if you have spare paper at home you can just draw a 2x7 grid to record your scores. This way you can play the game whenever you feel the need and include as many players as you like! I will send out a new game each Monday to help build up a few ideas of ways you can develop math skills at home. It was our turn to share at assembly on Friday so we decided to teach the rest of the school what we have learnt about circuits. We got the neuron kit out and demonstrated what a circuit needed inorder to work. Several of us were keen to see how many people we could link into our circuit so we took the opportunity to link ALL of Papatūānuku and Tāwhirimātea in. We were surprised to see it worked! (see photo) We are now wondering how many other classes we could link in! This week we are working on an electronic quiz board- this will require us to put our knowledge of circuits to the test! We are using our reading and writing skills to become an expert on a topic of our own choice. The children have been tasked with writing 6 interesting facts on their topic which they will then turn into questions. These questions will be published onto a quiz board which has a circuit hidden underneath it. When the player connects up the wires to the correct question and answer, it will hopefully form a complete circuit causing the light to activate. We are hoping to make these over the coming weeks and then invite other classes to try them out. We will aim to have an afternoon where we can set these up outside the classroom for parents to come and try out too!
Report by Mrs Swete
Ranginui
Kia Ora Families
This week in Ranginui…
We welcomed Katrin and her family to Sawyers Bay School. Miss Grewlett Hale has begun to take some of the children for handwriting, fitness, reading, and maths. She will increase teaching hours/lessons to the class over the next three weeks. Great start!
In Maths, a few groups have been learning to accurately record inside/outside temperatures, and have begun to research weather related questions such as; How do they predict the weather forecast?
Two reading groups are learning how to write articles. They have deconstructed two articles- The Hottest Place (The Sun) and Night Light (The Moon) and have discussed the features of articles- title, subheadings and the paragraphs, diagrams and how they help the reader understand the text. This week we have begun a poetry unit based on messages in special occasion cards.
We have learnt more actions in our Kapa Haka practices and are looking great, with more practices coming up we will keep focussing on the actions and being strong with our waitata.
The children are participating well in the Senior Arts rotations, dance, drama and music. I know I am having a blast teaching drama with the different classes.
Report by Miss Ruzsa
Hinemoana
This week in Hinemoana we are continuing to create our optical illusion art. We are learning lots of new steps and ways to create perspective in our art. Making a 2D composition look 3D. We can’t wait to have these finished and then turned into our calendar art.
Miss Mackay has been teaching us more and more, taking our class routines, groups in guided reading and for some fun math warm ups that have really been testing our brains! We are looking forward to her teaching us full time for the next three weeks.
Report by Miss Laing
Tāne Mahuta
It’s been another busy week in Tane Mahuta - but it’s been so much fun! We had a calendar art inspired working bee on Wednesday and spent our day getting creative. Our calendar art this year has been linked to our Inquiry learning and has focused on an interesting take on a rainbow! We focused on this because not only have we been learning about the eye and sight but colour and light! We have been yet again, quite amazed by some of the interesting things we have learned about colour, light and rainbows! Did you know that rainbows have their colour order because of the different wavelengths of the different colours? Red has the longest wavelength so is always on the outside of the rainbow and violet has the shortest wavelength so is always on the inside of the rainbow. We hope that when the forms come home for calendar art you like our creations as much as we do. They are bright, unique and cheerful and we can’t wait for you to see them!
Report by Miss Tenci
School Photos next week
Kia ora Sawyers Bay School families
I'm excited to be coming to Sawyers Bay School for school photos next week.
Jannah and I had so much fun last year photographing your children and we look forward to seeing how much they've grown!
My style of school photography is all about capturing each child's personality and getting natural and authentic expressions from them.
For those of you new to the school and my photography style, it might be a little different to what you have seen before.
Click this link to get all the information you need about photo day, and to get a feel for who I am and the style of pictures you can expect.
You are welcome to bring in siblings not-at-school for sibling photos between 8.10am and 9.00am, but you do need to book. You'll find the booking link on the info page.
I look forward to capturing the smiles of all of your children soon.
Warmly, Edith
Community Notices
Sawyers Bay School Board Elections
Nominations for the School Board Elections 2022 have now closed. A total of 6 nominations were received, which means we move to a voting election. If you are eligible to vote, you should have received your voting paper and instructions by now. Please contact the school office if you haven't.
Sawyers Bay School
School Board Elections Nominations Received
ASHTON Stefanie
CHAPMAN Holly
DAWE Anita
DICK Matthew
GIDDENS Tim
PRASAD Michael
Voting closes at 4pm on 7 September.
Kyla Martyn
Returning Officer
Let's go fishing
Otago Fish & Game’s popular Take A Kid Fishing events are back this year.
We are running four free sessions from 10am to noon at Southern Reservoir, Reservoir Road, Dunedin, on September 17, 18, 24 and 25, 2022.
You must register to attend. Go to the Otago Fish and Game Council Facebook page, or follow the link below:
https://www.surveymonkey.com/r/MC68SQF
Due to popular demand, participants may register for one day only. Numbers will be limited to 120 children per event.
Spare fishing rods will be available along with experts to help kids get started. Parents or caregivers must be present to supervise children.
Thanks to our supporters at the Otago Community Trust and Oceana Gold.
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