ICS PTSA NEWSLETTER

December 15, 2024

See the ICS Calendar for more upcoming event dates.

ICS SOPHOMORES & JUNIORS - SIGN UP FOR SAT PREP NOW!

Want to help your ICS student ace the SAT? Don’t miss this opportunity! Paragon Tutoring is offering an in-person SAT Prep course at ICS. The Winter SAT course will run every Tuesday for 1.5 to 2 hours per week depending on the week in the lCS Library, from January 7 to March 4. Please note that Sessions 1 and 9 are 2 hours each, and Sessions 2 through 8 are 1.5 hours each.

The cost for the 9-week package is $499. Sophomores - there are spots for you! You can find more details, including the complete class schedule, and register for the course by clicking on this link and using the password: Spring2025. For further questions, please email Raksha Pant.

All parents with children enrolled in the prep course, please sign up here for a volunteer shift if you have not done so. Thank you!

ICS INTERIOR CLEANING EVENT - VOLUNTEERS NEEDED!

Help make our school sparkle! The PTSA Interior Cleaning Committee has planned an interior cleaning event for Wednesday, December 18, from 5.30 PM - 8:30 PM. Please consider participating and, in doing so, earn 2.5 volunteer hours! Sign up here. (Also find the link in the "Volunteering at ICS" What'sApp group.)

We'll meet at the ICS front doors at 5:30 PM, sign-in, grab our tools, and get to work!

Food and water will be provided. There is no childcare, but ICS students can participate! We will: wipe desks, chairs, doors, whiteboards and windows, vacuum and/or sweep class floors, mop the hallway, and clean the library. Thank you!

ART DAY IS LOOKING FOR A FEW GOOD VOLUNTEERS

We have 18 classes and just one more week to reach our goal of offering 20 classes! 

We are still looking for an Art Day Committee Co-Chair and an Art Day Visual Art Chair, as well as ideas for 2 more classes! Examples of potential topics include: Dance, Henna, Sculpting, Cooking, etc. The sky is the limit! Share your idea by emailing artday@icsptsa.org.

MATH KANGAROO REGISTRATION DEADLINE IS TODAY, DEC. 15!

The Math Kangaroo registration deadline is TODAY, December 15! The test will be hosted in-person at ICS on Mar 20, 2025, 3:20 PM - 4:35 PM.

You will need an invitation code for our ICS test center. We have posted the detailed registration info to the WhatsApp group and to your email address registered here. It comes with many great benefits, free resources, rewards and volunteer opportunities. Please be sure to check it out.

For more information about the club’s activities, visit our website.

We are urgently looking for a co-chair to help lead the middle school group. If you're interested in this important role, please reach out to us at mathclub68@icsptsa.org.

ICS SKI BUS - LAST CALL FOR LESSONS

Want to learn to ski/snowboard, improve your skills, or just have fun on Wednesdays in January and February?

This is the last call to sign up for lessons! You may still be able to sign up for free skiing/riding until we run out of seats but the option to get 6-lesson pack is about to be close. Please do not delay! We are open for siblings and friends. Signup here.

Signup will continue until we reach the bus capacity. For more details and questions – please join the WhatsApp group.

HELLO FROM THE ICS LIBRARY!

Thank you AGAIN for the generous PTSA library grant! It has made a world of difference to be able to purchase newly released books this fall and get them in students’ hands! Recently when a student was checking out the latest Rick Riordan, he told me how lucky he felt to have the book because when he tried at KCLS there were hundreds of holds for the book already and now he didn’t need to wait! Win for reading! Here are some of the other things happening in the ICS Library right now:

We have 12 teams signed up to challenge themselves on their reading knowledge for our Battle of the Books! Our December practice included a sample challenge that is very similar to the actual building challenge but using questions written by our student teams!

On December 11th and 12th sixth graders who take Study Skills got to participate in the 2024 Hour of Code (HOC) event. The theme for HOC this year is to connect programming to real life applications: “making the invisible, visible.” Students participated in a NASA themed project using block coding that demonstrates how scientists use coding to organize data from the Chandra X-Ray Observatory in a process called sonification. Some students also had time to do an exercise to learn a bit about Python which involved a lot of puzzling!

We have a group of High School readers participating in our Horrible (Horror-able) Holiday Book Club. Students chose a mystery, a thriller or a horror book to read over winter break and will bring it to discuss on January 9th. At our meeting after sharing about their book, they can choose to keep it for their personal collections or swap with another group member. Mystery is my favorite genre, so I’m reading the latest Richard Osman murder mystery to get ready for our meeting!

I often get requests for book recommendations for gifting at this time of year. Feel free to email me if you need suggestions or check out my Instagram for years of great MS and HS recommendations! @ Mrs.Peterson_Librarian.

Thank you again for supporting our Library! Amber Peterson, ampeterson@lwsd.org

PUBLICATION UPDATE & LOOKING FOR A FEW GOOD EDITORS!

In 2025 the newsletter will be moving to a new publication schedule. Beginning with our first edition in January, the newsletter will be published on Tuesdays at 5:00 PM. This new schedule will align better with PTSA meetings, typically on Wednesdays, and is more convenient for our newsletter editors. The submission deadline for articles from the community will move from midnight Thursday to midnight Friday. Submission guidelines are on the ICS PTSA website here.

The newsletter team is looking to add one or more new editors to the team. We need editors who can cover a month-long shift (or two), in February, April, or June of 2025, and anticipate being able to serve in the 2025-2026 school year. All training is provided! If you're interested in earning volunteer hours from home, please email the newsletter chair at jbenner@icsptsa.org.