IC School Monthly Newsletter

The school year has gotten off to a good start. Our staff worked very hard to make things ready and welcoming for students and families.

IC is an experience that is chosen for its Catholicity, traditions, personalizing our education, and our core values. Our theme this year: We are One Body in Christ is chosen to show we are a team, a community, and we are in this together to support you and your children.

Our new pastorate has blessed us with three new priests. The students have met all three of them either at mass or at school. I am excited to have them here to be part of our IC community. Their prescence in our school helps lead our students to Christ and their support to the staff is encouraging.

I invite you to attend mass with us on Wednesdays at 8:30 a.m. Our students do our readings, sing in the choir, and usher for our mass. We do a collection at our school mass that is used towards our service projects throughout the year. One of our bigger service projects is Wildcat Bags for our littlest mass goers on the weekend masses.

There was a change in mass times in July. Saturday mass is at 4:00 p.m., Sunday it is at 8:30 a.m. and 10:00 a.m. Join us on the weekend for mass!

• Sept. 8th - Sept. 18th FAST Testing K-6th

• Sept. 7th NO SCHOOL
• Sept. 17 Field Trip 2nd grade
• Sept. 18 School Board 7:00 p.m.
• Sept. 19 Welcome class of 1966
• Sept. 20 Catechatical Sunday
• Sept. 22 Farm Safety 4th grade
• Oct. 1 Wellness Day 5th grade
• Oct. 2 Grandparents Day

Our handbook is available on our website. Reviewing it regularly helps us stay consistent in our expectations and responses for students.

Discipline is part of learning and an important part of a child’s development. When concerns arise, teachers will communicate with parents so we can work together to support the child. These conversations are meant to be helpful and supportive, not to target a student.

Physical aggression toward others will result in an office referral and may result in suspension.

Families can also help by having frequent conversations at home about expectations for how we speak to and treat others. Talk with your child about how to respond when situations are difficult or uncomfortable. When children hear your voice reminding them what you expect, they are better prepared to make good choices when they face those situations at school.

We have attended mass together as a school twice this school year. The homilies from Fr. Chris and Fr. Ivan have been engaging have involved student participation. Fr. Ivan has visited our school a couple times and Fr. Ray has also been over to see our students. This is exciting for the students as they see them taking a geniune interest in them. Please continue to pray for all three of our priests that the Holy Spirit continues to inspire them and lead our pastorate.

Getting back into the routine of school always takes a bit of time. We work on reteaching expectations and consistently reinforcing them. Fr. Ivan spoke to the students yesterday about four little things that he would expect as the school year starts. These help us light the way to Christ for others. Every day we need to greet others with our social graces by saying:

Have a nice day!

Please.

Thank you.

You're Welcome.

Our teachers will be reinforcing these at school to encourage our students to be the best version of themselves and helping others light their way to Christ.Talking about these expectations at home and clearly sharing what you expect from your child will help our students grow, make good choices, and navigate challenging situations with confidence.

Thank you for partnering with us as we work together to consistently implement the uniform policy and support the values behind it.

Our uniform policy states non logos - this includes recognizable name brands such as Under Armour, Nike, Champion, and similar brands. This expectation is intentional to help create a more equal environment for all students.

Some consistent things we see that we need to work on are:

*Logos on clothing (Champion, Under Armour, Nike, etc) - policy is non logo

*Pants, shorts, and skirts are either navy or khaki only

*Polos are white or navy only

Thank you for helping your child understand and follow the uniform policy. You are teaching them the importance of respecting expectations and following rules.

Parents are the first educators in the home, and the expectations you reinforce at home will echo at school. Talking with your child about these first weeks shows them that you support them in learning and following the expectations set by their teachers and our school.

If your child brings home something that concerns you, please reach out to the teacher for clarification. A child’s perspective can be different from an adult’s, and teachers may have additional information about the situation.

We want our children to feel heard while also supporting our teachers and staff and following the policies and expectations of our school and Church.

On September 5, we celebrate the feast day of St. Teresa of Calcutta. A wonderful way to celebrate as a family is to do a random act of kindness for someone else, just as St. Teresa did throughout her life.

This month, our students will celebrate Mary’s birthday on September 8. In the Catholic faith, we honor Mary and ask her to intercede on our behalf. She was chosen among women to be the mother of Christ. We look forward to celebrating this special day with our students!

Another great way to connect prayer with your family is by creating a home altar or special prayer space. The Hallow app is available to each student, with the ability to connect two devices at home. We encourage you to link your child’s account so your family can pray together.

To set up your child’s Hallow account, visit:
https://hallow.com/claim-student/

The account was set up using the student’s mom’s email address when available. If we did not have mom’s email address, dad’s email address was used.

Join us for mass on Wednesdays at 8:30 a.m.

In Mrs. Osier's half day preschool classes we are slowly, but purposefully, working towards learning our classroom guidelines and transitions! We are learning about 'school' in our large group and centers. We have already enjoyed extra specials this year with library and P.E. We are also very excited that Mrs. Reddel has joined us as our preschool aide!

I am excited to get to know your children. We have had a great week. learning the expectations for several things in the classroom. One thing that has changed from the previous years is that we are now eating lunch in the lunchroom with Unit A. The preschoolers have been doing great with this change. They have received a lot of compliments about how quiet they are when walking in the hallway. Beginning in September, we will be working with our new curriculum and starting to work on our letter recognition and letter sounds.

This month we will be learning about…
Math: describing position, comparing length & height, and sorting.
Reading and writing: Letters a, b, f, h, i, m, s, t. Word play, blending sounds, and rhyming.
Social Studies: Safety Strong

We will celebrate birthdays for Viola, Dean, Greyson, and Aryenis! They will also experience their first FAST testing this month. Near the end of the month we will go to the Public Library and celebrate Charles City Homecoming. We are so excited to get to know our newest Wildcats!

Hi first grade families! It has been a wonderful start to the school year. Looking forward to September; 1st grade will be creating an address book on September 17th from 9:30 a.m. - 10:00 a.m. Please have a family member join your child who knows their address to help create their book. This connects to your child's learning in reading and social studies. In math, we are learning about which numbers add to ten. Please always reach out if you need anything.

Greetings from Mrs. Platts 2nd Grade!

We have been enjoying this first week getting to know each other and our expectations in our classroom. We learned we are a family. We enjoyed our first school Mass. We will begin next week with lessons on finding key details, number sense, and being a helpful pal. We also have our first class field trip coming up in September.

On September 17th, we will be taking a trip to Iowa’s smallest Catholic church in Festina, Iowa.

Fr. Ivan will be joining us on our field trip. Students will need to still come in uniforms and they will need a cold lunch with a drink. We will be celebrating Mass and sharing on this special day as we are preparing for our sacraments this year. We are going to have a great year in 2nd grade!

Mrs. K. Field's students have begun learning cursive. We are already great at recognizing our names in cursive even though some of those letters look much different than what we have been accustomed to. We have been reviewing "making tens" and discussing math nomenclature like "10 frames", "number bonds" and "math models". Discussing preferred strategies helps us to be aware of our thinking. (Metacognition!) We even had our first substitute teacher Thursday afternoon. Reviewing sentence structure has been a real breeze and we have had a few fun read-alouds.

September is going to be a busy and exciting month in 3rd grade! On September 2, our class will be song leaders at Mass. FAST testing will begin the week of September 8. In reading, we will begin our first unit by enjoying fictional stories while learning how to retell important events and identify the moral or lesson of a story. In writing, we will work on creating our own creative narrative stories. In math, we will focus on place value, rounding numbers, and adding three-digit numbers with regrouping. In science, we will learn about how animals change over time. We are looking forward to a great month of learning together!

Hello! I am so excited to be back with the students! We have been busy learning about our expectations and hard at work learning. This month we will be going to the public library on September 9th at 9:30 a.m. Please look at home and see if your child has their public library card. This month we are going to Farm Safety Day on September 22, 2026. We will be at the Floyd County Fairgrounds. Your child will need to bring a cold lunch and drink this day. They may wear jeans or shorts depending on the weather, a hat, and a sweatshirt as we will be outside all day. This is an approved out of uniform day for fourth grade since they will also be wearing a Farm Safety shirt that they will put on the morning of our field trip.

We had a great start to the school year! During September we are going to be song leaders at mass on September 16th and lead mass on September 30th. Remember Farm Safety on September 22nd! September starts out digging right into content and we are excited to get this exciting year underway!

We’ve had a busy and exciting start to the school year! Our class has spent time learning and practicing classroom expectations and routines to help us build a positive and successful learning environment. Students are also continuing their i-Ready Reading and Math diagnostics, which will help guide our instruction throughout the year. We’ve jumped into our curriculum as well! I’m excited to start using Mystery Writing and Mystery Science with my 5th graders, while my 6th graders will be diving into science with Scholastic Science and Generation Genius. We are off to a great start and looking forward to all the learning ahead! Go Wildcats! Blessings! Mrs. Franke

This week in 5th and 6th grade we will continue to review expectation procedures throughout the day. In reading we will be starting spelling lists, morphology and "magnetic reading" book. In math we are continuing our focus on rectangular prisims. Social studies we are digging into our unit on clean water around the world. In writting for 5th grade we are wrapping up topic sentences and paragraphs. WIN time will be designated to finish up ready diagnostics and other little coloring projects that need completed.

Welcome to Mrs. Hillegas as our long term sub while Mrs. Munson is on maternity leave.

This week in 5th and 6th grade we have been going through expectation procedures in all parts of our day. We will continue to review these expectations regularly to ensure consistency in our day.

In Social Studies, we started a unit on Clean Water access in other countries. We will explore the issue people face in regards to access to clean water. We will also read the book A Long Walk to Water.

In 5th grade math, we are finding volume of rectangular prisms. In 5th grade writing students are practicing topic sentences and paragraph structure.

As we are getting started to this wonderful school year, I wanted to keep you in the loop of what is going on in P.E. We are reviewing some recess games, and then as we get into the month of September we will be starting with a football/throwing and catching unit! Then we will rotate into soccer and kicking units. I also want to inform you that I am doing my absolute best to build strong connections with your children!

We have an art room at IC! It has been a great first week. We dove right in, looking at art, talking about art and learning a bit about how line and color can be used. We discussed what installation and collaborative art can look like. Everyone’s first two projects are the same because all K-6 students are contributing to make two collaborative projects. It will be very exciting to see everyone’s ideas become one!

Several exciting TAG programs are getting underway! Information was sent home this week about the following opportunities:

IC Spelling Bee | Grades 1–6

• Preliminary Rounds: September 28–30
• Championship Rounds: October 12–16
• Study Lists: https://bit.ly/4cJeiQI

Battle of the Books | Grades 1–4

Students can form teams of four and register at school.

• Book Lists: https://bit.ly/4qjbYFC

Battle of the Books | Grades 5–6

Students interested in joining the Mac Reader Team can get started reading now!

• Applications Due: January 15
• Applications include a checklist of books students have read from this year’s list.
• Book List: https://bit.ly/4cfmM1R

IC Book Bag Program

Our first Book Bags will be sent home the week of September 14–18!

5th & 6th Grade Book Bag Assistants: Students interested in helping with the Book Bag Program can pick up an application from Mrs. Hansen.

• Applications Due: September 2

We are excited to get these programs started and to see our students reading, learning, and challenging themselves this fall!

Welcome back to a brand-new school year! I am blessed to partner with you in your child’s IC school religion education this year. As the primary educators of your children, your example at home is the foundation of their spiritual growth.

Throughout September, our religion curriculum focuses on establishing our communal faith routines, with a special emphasis on mastering our Mass Expectations to ensure we are reverent and fully prepared for our weekly Wednesday school Masses. We will also draw inspiration from a beautiful lineup of feast days this month.

To help bring these faith lessons into your home, here are the saints we are studying and a simple activity you can do together for each feast day:

• Sept. 5 – St. Teresa of Calcutta: Clean a room or do a chore for a family member without being asked, practicing her call to "do small things with great love."

• Sept. 7 – Blessed Carlo Acutis & St. Pier Giorgio Frassati: Take a family walk outside to appreciate God's creation (Frassati's favorite), or spend 10 minutes offline to focus on prayer (like tech-loving Carlo).

• Sept. 8 – Nativity of the Blessed Virgin Mary: Bake or buy a birthday cake for Mother Mary and pray a family Hail Mary before eating a slice.

• Sept. 23 – St. Padre Pio: Before bed, write down or say out loud three things you are worried about, then pray Padre Pio's famous line: "Pray, hope, and don't worry."

• Sept. 27 – St. Vincent de Paul: Go through your pantry or closets together and gather items to donate to a local food bank or shelter to practice radical charity.

• Sept. 29 – Feast of the Archangels: Pray the Saint Michael the Archangel prayer together before leaving for school or work to ask for spiritual protection.

• Sept. 30 – St. Jerome: Open your family Bible together, read just one chapter of a Gospel, and talk about your favorite verse to build scripture literacy.

🛠️ Coming Soon: Faith in Action Wednesdays

We will start Faith in Action on Wednesdays in September... watch for more information!!! Under this program, our students will focus heavily on Catholic Social Teachings alongside the Corporal and Spiritual Works of Mercy as they learn to live out their faith through service.

📱 Introducing the Hallow App!

To support your child's prayer routine, we will be using the Hallow app during school this year. Hallow is a fantastic Catholic prayer and meditation app, and it is completely free for our school families to use at home! You can download it on your phone or tablet.

Guidance Corner: Respect

We are kicking off the school year in guidance with our first unit, Respect! Throughout the next several weeks, students will explore what it means to show respect for themselves, others, and their school and community. Through age-appropriate stories, games, discussions, hands-on activities, and real-life situations, students will practice recognizing feelings, making respectful choices, using kind words and actions, respecting differences and boundaries, and caring for the people and places around them. As we learn and practice together, students will discover that respect is more than a word—it is something we show through the choices we make every day!