March PTA Newsletter by Linda Baumstarck

March 2012

Volume 58, Issue 7

Sunset News March 2012 SUN

MON

TUE

WED

THU 1

Young Authors Celebration

PT Conference & Staff Dinner

PTA meeting

FRI 2

SAT 3

No School

Conference

StarGATE

29 Mystery 30

Newsletter deadline

Tues. March 6 & Weds. March 7 — Parent Teacher Conferences Fri. March 9—No School Mon. March 12 –Young Authors Celebration at CMS Tues. March 13—PTA meeting @ 6:30 pm Tues. March 13— StarGATE meeting @ 6:30 pm Tues. March 20 —Family Fun & Food Nite at Wendy’s

Reading Night

Tues. March 2 —School Board Meeting Weds. March 28— deadline for Newsletter submissions Thurs. March 29— Mystery Family Reading Night

Do you watch “The Balancing Act” on Lifetime TV? It is a fabulous, informative program for parents. On Dish Network it is on at 5 a.m. Find out when it is on your TV, you will want to know. What is that first paragraph about? Why would I ask you to check it out? What is going on? Okay, here it is. Lifetime Television is coming to Sunset Elementary School. They will be here in March to film; the segment will air on “The Balancing Act” in April. The reason? Lifetime is seeking Dream Schools for the 21st Century and asked Virco Furniture to provide them with three American schools affecting education in a positive manner. The number one school on the list is yours truly, Sunset. Virco Furniture will speak to their desire to enrich learning environments. They are not just a furniture company, but a company concerned about education. Our segment will focus on healthy movement (featuring the rocker chairs). Virco executives touring Sunset last year continue to tell the world about Sunset’s culture and care for children. What an honor this is, even if is only a short moment in time. Thanks to all our staff who, every day seek to meet every student’s heart and educational needs. Thanks to a school district and community who support education. Thanks to parents who support learning and teaching at Sunset. Thanks to the wonderful students walking through the doors each morning. Mrs. Farmer, Principal

BBHC Raptor Assembly was very thrilling for all our students. Many have also had opportunities to visit the museum thanks to PTA support! See more pictures on our Facebook page –Sunset Elementary

School PTA

New Staff at Sunset  Melissa Cunningham—SPED ParaEducator  Woody Searles—SPED Educator

Para-

 Kelly Christiansen—SPED Nurse  Windy Smith - School Nurse If you see them in the hall, please welcome them!

Young Author Celebration This is an invitation to all Young Authors and their parents and relatives. There will be a district-wide celebration on Monday, March 12 at the Cody Middle School Commons at 6:00pm. Students will get their books that evening, unless they win at the district level. In that case their book will be going to the state competition to be judged with others in their grade level and genre. The guest author for the evening will be Rahim Khan, who wrote So You Want To Buy a Dog. Refreshments will be served after awards.

Parent/Teacher Conferences will be March 6 and 7; 3:15pm to 6:45pm. Feed the Teacher nite will be Tuesday March 6th where PTA members and interested parents provide dinner for the staff that nite. A sign up sheet is on our PTA bulletin board by the Staff Lounge or email PTA if you can bring something. Our Spring Book Fair will also be over these days. The Fall book fair earned $2500 in classroom supplies from Scholastic. Thank you for your support!

Sunset School Parent-Teacher Association President—Lisa McDonald, 250-4633 sunsetpta@nazdorovya.com Vice President—Becca Manchester Secretary—Bobbi Moss Treasurer—Ashley McCarten Sunset Elementary School PTA

@SunsetPTA

From the Handbook Students need to be healthy to attend school. Please do not send your child to school when he/she is ill. We feel that a child who is too ill to go outside during recess is too ill to be in school. Please do not send notes to school requesting that your child be allowed to stay inside for recess.

Our next Parent-Teacher Association meeting will be held on Tues. March 13th at 630 pm in the Art/Science room. All parents and staff are invited and encouraged to attend.

Kindergarten will continue to learn sight words, working on learning how to retell stories, and our reading and writing skills. Our Parent Teacher conferences will be March 6 and 7th, we look forward to seeing each of you! We will visit the museum on 3/6 & 3/7, 3/20 & 3/21. We have been learning about our Presidents – Washington, Lincoln, and also Buffalo Bill Cody with all their birthday celebrations in February! We will also celebrate Dr. Seuss’ birthday, by reading his stories and doing other fun activities. We will be learning a lot about frogs and toads. Have a great month!

Cole, Barnhart & Ellsbury February flew right by! All three classes enjoyed their Valentine’s parties. This month was also filled with many exciting learning opportunities for our Sunset Second graders. We finished up our Math Unit on Geometry! We are working on Time, Money, Graphing, and Calculator Skills for the rest of the year. We work on a different skill each day. The kids are enjoying the variety! We completed our 2nd trimester writing assessments. They had to write a story about a time that they lost a tooth. We are proud of their effort on these! Mrs. Cole also announced that she is expecting a baby in early September. Page 4

Mrs. Olson We are “MARCHing” into some new areas of learning this month. We finished our penguin unit with a fun celebration and are now into standard units of measurement (inches/ centimeter/etc.). We’ll also be working with shapes and learning what attributes they have. We will continue to work on addition and subtraction and move into doubles, neighbors and strategies for addition, including using story problems and patterns in numbers, to apply these skills. We will continue to study Mercer Mayer as a mentor author, to help us in our writing. Be watching for 2 new travel books coming home in March. You will see the difference in our writing! Our air and weather unit is starting. We will study tools used by meteorologists, track patterns and learn about clouds and air. We are excited to tell you about our 1st Grade Reading Challenge, starting in March. We will need all of you to participate in keeping track of reading minutes with your 1st grader each day, as we add them together with other classes to meet the Big Minutes goal. Look for more information coming home in the Monday folders soon.

Mrs. Hill’s third grade class is moving into a unit in geometry! This includes 2 and 3 dimensional shapes, congruency and symmetry. Students will enjoy the discussion and inquiry on these subjects. In writing, our class is moving into literary essays: writing about reading. Students will build on their favorite "stories" by collecting possible writing ideas and focusing on their favorite characters from books. We will continue to give 100% and work hard in the 3rd Trimester! Sunset News

Fourth and Fifth Grade TOWN was on the 24th of February. Students read books and posted reports and blogged about them on our websites in order to participate. Students will have the same number of blogs and posts for the final trimester, as well. PAWS Testing will be in March. Fourth graders will take the Reading, Math, and Science tests. Fifth graders will test in Reading and Math, and will complete the writing portion in May. Be sure to have students well-rested, fed, and healthy for the tests, as they are difficult to make up. Parent Conferences will be on March 6 & 7, and we will be working to accommodate the many parents who wish to meet with ALL students. We had overwhelming response to our questionnaire and will be meeting with as many parents as possible during those days. Fifth graders are finishing Thin Wood Walls, a book about Japanese Internment, with other 5th graders in Cody. The book discussion on March 1 will be held at the Public Library at 6:00 p.m.

Mrs. Baumstarck Third, Fourth, and the Fifth Grades have all been enjoying the culminating activity for the Second Step Program. We have been playing Jeopardy. I have used the vocabulary from the Second Step Program to review Unit 3; which was Anger Management. In the Kindergarten, First Grade and Second Grade classrooms, we have continued to learn what is means to be a caring person. We have watched movies showing kind/caring acts, listened to stories, and colored pictures of kind and caring people. Page 5

Miss Pinney The month of March will focus on looking into the lives of composers and their influence on music. We will also continue to grow in reading, writing, and performing music through a variety of music activities. The Kindergarten and 1st grade classes are now preparing for o ur next m u si c a l performance. The musical “Bugz” will be performed on April 3rd at the High School Wynona Thompson Auditorium at 6:30 p.m. Remember to mark your calendar.

PAWS Testing PAWS testing March 5—30th for Grades 3—5: A primary purpose of the Proficiency Assessments for Wyoming Students (PAWS) is to foster program improvement at the school, district, and state levels in support of the teaching and learning that takes place in Wyoming public classrooms and meets all of the attendant requirements of the No Child Left Behind Act of 2001. By state law all students are required to take the assessment. If they miss school it has to be made up at a different time, which may pull a child out of regular classroom instruction. Ways parent’s can help: 

Please try not to schedule appointments during this time.



Students need a healthy breakfast so that their minds can focus on the assessment instead of on grumbly tummies (remember Sunset serves breakfast, with advance notice, for the same price as lunch).



Good sleep habits—children aged 5—12 are recommended to get 10-11 hours of sleep a nite.

You can contact information.

Mrs.

Skoric

for

Sunset News

Family Food & Fun Nite #2 Join us on Tues. March 20th from 5–8 pm at Wendy’s for a fun evening. Wendy’s is donating the proceeds from the night to the PTA fund earmarked for the new Kids Fitness Course on the Westside of the school. Come say hi to our Sunset Mascot, get a Tattoo and every family receives a raffle ticket to win great prizes! Plus some of the Staff and Student Council members will be serving your food tonight, you won’t want to miss that! Tell your friends and neighbors and especially Sunset Alumni to join us! Our Family Food and Fun Nite #1 at Arby’s was a huge success. Mrs. Manchester says “We can’t thank ALL of you enough for your participation tonight at Arby’s! It was a success and we saw a huge number of Sunset families participate. We brought in 120 orders from 5-7 alone! Thanks so much for coming out on such a dreary, busy night and showing the community and our kids how much WE LOVE SUNSET!“ Our Dr. Seuss Kids Nite Out was so much fun! Thank you to all who helped and participated! Mrs. Farmer says, “Another fabulous Kids Night Out!!!!! I cannot say how much I appreciate you all, I hope you know the great love and appreciation I have for you all. It is so good to have events in the school that are not school for the kiddos to enjoy the building and not see it as the place to HAVE to go to. The smiles on the faces of the children are worth a million. The laughter and joy and the interaction between parents, kids, and teachers is priceless. Thanks again for caring for the wonderful Sunset children.”

April Newsletter Deadline Weds. March. 28th Please send your submissions to sunsetpta@nazdorovya.com

If someone would like to organize the Sunset Students to participate in the parade please let the PTA know.

Point B 4-H Community Club is having a meeting Monday, March 5th at 3:30 in the Barling Room in the Lower Level of the Court House. Everyone is welcome. It is a General Community Club so all projects are addressed. For more information, contact Pepper Werner, 587-2732 or finallywy@yahoo.com .