FEBRUARY 23 Parent/Teacher Conferences, 4-8:00 p.m.

24 Reading Party

28 Parent/Teacher Conferences, 4-8:00 p.m.

MARCH 1 Parent/Teacher Conferences, 4-8:00 p.m.

6 Open Gym/Tech Night, 6:30 p.m.

6 PTSA Meeting, 7:00 p.m.

9 BAT Day, 4th grade, 9:30 a.m.

20 Coffee with the Principal—9:15 a.m.

23 Plant Sale Kick-off

23 Carnival 6:00-8:00 p.m.

29 No School for Students

30 No School for Students

APRIL 2-6 Spring Break

9 School Resumes

13 Plant orders Due

MAY 7 MN Twins , 7:10 p.m.

Sept. 29, 2011

Sunset Hill Elementary

13005 Sunset Trail

Plymouth, MN 55441

Office: 763 745-5900

Health Office/Attendance: 763 745-5915

Karen Keffeler, Principal

Joanne Doucet, Secretary

Internet Address:

First name.last name@wayzata.k12.mn.us

Once again the Sunset Hill Choir will be singing the na-

tional anthem at a Minnesota Twins game. Monday, May

7 is Sunset Hill Night at Target Field. Look for a flier

both online and sent home and reserve your tickets!

Thanks to all who coordinated and purchased items at

the Book Fair. It was our most successful ever. We

would not have the fantastic presentation and organiza-

tion without the amazing work of Angi Marquette,

Heather Van Krevelen, Leslie Sell and all of the volun-

teers who made it a fun experience.

Many of you have seen the news report that Minnesota

was among 11 states that were granted a waiver from

the federal regulations under NCLB. Minnesota’s “No

Child Left Behind” waiver is a great step in the right

direction. It will allow the Minnesota Department of

Education to be in a better position to work with school

districts to demonstrate accountability in student learn-

ing from a local perspective, which makes more sense.

The waiver is a good thing because it allows those

closest to the work the ability to decide the appropriate

materials, lessons and instructional methods to help

students grow academically. Schools will still be held

accountable for student learning, but will have the

flexibility to determine how to best meet student needs.

Teachers will have more flexibility. There will be less

teaching to the test and more personalization in meeting

student learning needs.

Accountability for student proficiency and growth in

reading and math will still be measured by state assess-

ments, and we will continue providing our students a

challenging, engaging and personalized learning experi-

ence.

More detailed information can be found in the March 1

Thursday efolder.

Feb. 23, 2012

BOOK FAIR Results The 2012 Book Fair results are in and we had another

outstanding year of sales and One For books donations!

Our results are better than any of the previous Book

Fairs on record.

2012 Total Book Fair Sales = $14,591.62 (an

increase of $1875.78 over last year).

We split our profits up between Cash and Scholastic

Dollars in the following way:

$2000 Cash Profit for PTSA Funded Events such as

the Reading Party and Family Breakfast.

$3993.29 Scholastic Dollars for the Media Center

(an increase of $596.32 over last year).

One For Books 2012 One For Books Donations = $1356.19 (an

increase of $466.64 over last year).

Our One for Books Classroom Competition was a great

success! We want to thank all of the Sunset Hill

Families who donated to the One For Books program,

including the Fesenmaier Family who donated $250.

The One For Books donations collected from each

classroom and at the cash registers, allowed us to give

115 books to the Media Center and 76 books to the

Sunset Hill Classrooms already, without even spending

any of our profit from the Book Fair. We also receive

further benefits to our school from the One For Books

donations in our overall profits, because for every dol-

lar we raised, Scholastic will match it with 55 cents

more, giving us an additional $745.90 in Scholastic dol-

lars to use for future purchases for the Media Center.

Lastly, since we raised $1356.19, Scholastic will donate

1356 books to children in need.

The One For Books Classroom Competition Winner

was Mrs. Howard's am Kindergarten class with do-

nations totaling $379.40. Honorable mention goes to

Mrs. Wachs' kindergarten class who raised $139.74.

Both classes received a book, and of course Mrs. How-

ard's class received the honor of throwing pies at Ms.

Keffeler. The four students who "took aim" at Ms.

Keffeler were: Nadia Fesenmaier, Bryce Anderson,

Priscilla Huber and Will Kirven. The pie throwing event

took place "Live" on the 2/10/12, TNN Broadcast. If

you have not gotten a chance to check out the video of

the TNN Broadcast, you can find it on the on the

Sunset Hill Webpage, under the "About Us-

News&Information-Video Gallery" pull down menu. It

is laugh-out-loud funny to watch Mrs. Keffeler read

student birthdays and trojan pride winners with

whipped cream dripping off of her nose! Also, if you

see Mrs. Keffeler in the hallways around school,

please take the time to say thank you to her for all

that she does for our school. She is such a trooper to

agree to have pies thrown in her face as a reward for

the One For Books Classroom Competition Winner!

Thanks Mrs. Keffeler!!

Further Highlights of the Book Fair:

The winner of "Guess How Many Gummy Worms"

Contest was Belle Brown, in Mrs. Baker’s 5th grade

class, with a guess of 267. This was just 6 away from

the correct number of 273 worms. Belle won a book, a

poster and the jar of gummy worms.

The winners of the free poster drawing were:

Katherine Graham, Sharlyn Neri Bailon, Joshua

Petrie, Chloe Ramstrom, Tessa Ramos, Alex Okpoyo,

Ryan Walsh-Stanek, Blake Bergmann, Zack Magnuson,

Anders Malmquist, Joel Ostapeic, Luke Bodine, Kyle

Noble, Zaibaa Khan, Max Hoffman, Siri Gururaj,

Kashia Xiong, Anvita Garikapati, Clara Tevogt, Dani

Giron, Tony Diep, Arul Belhe, Mary Marsh, Jack

Aderson, Sam Harris, and Brody Bjork.

The Classroom Book Fair Bingo Winners were: Mr.

Worth, Mrs. Tietema and Mr. vanKoeverden. Each

classroom received a book as a prize.

I am happy to announce that the Book Fair ran much

more smoothly this year during the Family Breakfast,

with the combination of having four cash registers

available and families staggering their arrival times

to the Book Fair.

Book Fair Volunteers A huge thank you goes out to all of our Book Fair Vol-

unteers, many of whom came back multiple times to

help us out on shifts where we were short volunteers!

We could not have had such a successful Book Fair

without the following people: Nicole Mareck, Sarah

Bocaner, Diane Hayden, Connie Helppi, Kristen Wolf,

Renee Shakerin, Carolyn Arnebeck, Rebecca McGrath,

Kate Dando, Shanna Krider, Teresa Weum, Dawn

Zouber, Chris Commerford, Nancy Stillman, Tammy

Hausken, Stacy Shamblott, Jody Kleyman, Amy Buck-

ley, Molly Skoro, Robin Vanoss, Karen Keffeler and

Lynn Soderberg.

Thanks for a great Book Fair! Angi Marquette, Leslie Sell and Heather VanKrevelan

2012 Book Fair Co-Chairs

VOLUNTEERS First of all I would like to thank all the parents who have volunteered

at the school so far this year! You all have been a huge help to our

classrooms and PTSA events.

One of the biggest PTSA fund raising events of the year is the Carni-

val happening March 23rd and as always we are in NEED of volun-

teers. This is a huge event and we are in need of at least 75 parent

volunteers to help with set up, run games, sell tickets, etc.. If you are

interested in signing up for a 1 1/2 hour shift that night please do so

on the PTSA Volunteer Sign Up Form on the website. The volunteer

sign up form is located under the quick links section of the school

website.

Again thank you for all your help this year and please feel free to

contact with me any volunteer needs or questions at

npmareck@comcast.net or 763-545-8090.

Thanks, Nicole Mareck

Sunset Hill Elementary „s “I Love to Read Month”

Throughout the month of February, students and staff at

Sunset Hill Elementary celebrated “I Love to Read Month”

and it was a busy and fun filled month! Many activities

were planned with the highlight being the PTSA sponsored

annual illustrator visit by Minneapolis illustrator, Mike

Wohnoutka. Mike shared his personal stories of illustrating

and even created original illustrations with the help of our

students. Come into the media center to see these works

of art! Our PTSA also hosted a book fair which was the

most successful to date. With many thanks to the generos-

ity of our Sunset Hill community, the media center added

over 150 book fair books to our collection plus received

more book funds to be used at a later date. THANK YOU!

New this year: All SH students were invited to participate

in our first annual bookmark making contest. With the

sales of the bookmarks, we raised $195.30 for Sunset Hill

Against Hunger! The bookmarks turned out beautifully and

visit our SH webpage for pictures of the winning book-

marks. As always, thank you to our great staff at Sunset

Hill, the PTSA, and the I Love to Read Month committee

Newsnotes from the Naturalist

February, 2012

February is sometimes called the “Baby Bear Moon” which

tells us what is happening across the northern part of our state

in the dens of hibernating black bears. It’s an amazing piece of

nature that bear cubs often in sets of twins are born to hibernat-

ing moms even while they don’t feed, drink or go to the bath-

room. It may be our shortest month of the year but it is action

packed.

This winter has been extremely mild. Only three days so far

with below zero temperatures. We have had more days in the

mid-30’s, 40’s and even a few 50 degree days. The snow we

received on Monday evening was the best for making a snow-

man that we had received all winter.

Here are a few other February observations:

By February 1st we have gained one hour of daylight since

the winter solstice

Wintering bald eagles are leaving the Mississippi River and

heading back to their nesting areas

Our bird feeding stations in the nature center are busy with

chickadees, nuthatches, bluejays, gold finches and several

woodpecker species

Great-horned owl moms are sitting on eggs

Crows are pairing up and very active

Squirrels are nest building getting ready for the first litters

to arrive in March

Woodpeckers drumming to attract mates

A saw-whet owl was roosting in the duck box in the marsh

area. It sure surprised me when I opened the box for a peek.

Went back the next day and found an owl pellet

One of the 3rd grade classes had a chance to see for several

minutes 5 deer in the marsh area.

The red-osier dogwood shrubs are bright red

The sun is higher in the sky and concentrating its rays mak-

ing the interior of our vehicles feel like greenhouses

All of these observations and many more are a sure sign that

Spring is just around the corner. It’s fun to notice the subtle

changes like oak leaves on snow or bluebirds checking out the

boxes in the prairie. Migration has begun and each day brings

the opportunity to see something new.

See you all in the Maple Sugar Moon!

Marleane Callaghan, Naturalist

for their enthusiasm and commitment to creating a communi-

ty of readers. Read on!

Laurie Lindquist

Sunset Hill media specialist

Laurie.lindquist@wayzata.k12.mn.us