Lower Academy

Important Dates

Parents & Pastries…Tuesday, August 26 @ 8:15am in the Library

Handicrafts Festival…September 10-12 (Lower Academy students only)

Parent/Teacher Conferences.... September 29-October 3

GrandPals Day…Friday, November 7, 2025

PARENTS & PASTRIES

Parents and Pastries is a quarterly event for our Academy parents where we share pastries and conversation about a wide range of topics that pertain to our school!  Please join Erin Drago in the school library on Tuesday morning, August 26, at 8:15am.

Car Tags

Please make sure your car tags are visible in the passenger window.  Please do not put them in the front window unless absolutely necessary.  It is easier to see them when they are displayed on the side of the car.  Thank you for your help with this.  

Announcing “Foundations Friends”

This school year our K4, 5 day class will be paired up with our 5th grade class in a mentorship type relationship.  These “Foundations Friends” will stand together during Morning Liturgy, sit together during Lower Academy chapel, and read together throughout the year.  Make sure you ask your K4 (5 day) and 5th grade students about their “Foundations Friend”. 

Communication with Teachers

If you need to communicate with your child’s teacher, please do that via email.  Thanks so much!

School Supplies

Please make sure your student has his/her school supplies.  If you have any questions, you can contact your child’s teacher.  Here is a link to those lists:

Parent Portal — New Covenant School

K3 & K4

Quarter 1 Enrichment

Each quarter, our K3/K4 classes will be introduced to a new artist, poet, composer, and hymn.  We would love for our families to be continuing this at home in the evenings and on the weekends.  Some great ways to do that are to print several prints from that quarter’s artist and hang them on your refrigerator or around the house.  You can also have that quarter’s symphony playing in the background as you eat dinner or drive to school.  Another idea is to read a poem by the poet before bed every night.  You can also sing the hymn as a family periodically throughout the week.  There are many simple ways to incorporate truth, goodness, and beauty into your daily routines!  You can find the names of the artist, poet, composer/symphony, and hymns on the bulletin board in the preschool wing at the school.  You will also be able to find them in the Chronicle.  

Quarter 1:

Poet:  Robert Louis Stevenson

Artist:  Vincent vanGogh

Music:  Prokofiev (Peter & the Wolf)

Hymn:  Guide Me, O Thou Great Jehovah & Come Thou Fount of Every Blessing

In order for our classrooms and families to be able to learn and sing the same version of our quarterly hymns at home and at school, Jonathan Wisdom, the pastor of worship at New Covenant Church created us tracks that can be shared and used by everyone!  Thank you so much, Jonathan!  This is a gift to our school and families.  You can find the tracks for this quarter’s hymns at the website below:

Public Domain Hymns — New Covenant Church

Bathroom Independence

Please make sure you are continuing to work with your child regarding being independent in the bathroom.  This includes wiping, washing hands, etc.  

K3 & K4 Chapel

Our K3 & K4 students will join the rest of the lower school for Chapel this year, which will be every Friday from 8:15-8:45am.  Parents are welcome to join us!  Our K3 classes will go back to their rooms for a Bible lesson once our time of singing, praying, and recitation is over. 

Upcoming chapel dates:

Lower Academy…Friday, August 22 (8:15-8:45am C108)

All-Academy Chapel…Friday, August 29 (9:04am gym)

K5-5th Grade

Outdoor Lunch

K5-5th grade will eat lunch outdoors Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays this year!  This is a great opportunity for our students to spend some more time in creation.  On these days, students will NOT be able to microwave their food, so please send a picnic-style lunch (i.e. sandwich, chips, and fruit). 

“For we are an overwrought generation, running to nerves as a cabbage runs to seed; and every hour spent in the open is a clear gain, tending to the increase of brain power and bodily vigour, and to the lengthening of life itself. They who know what it is to have fevered skin and throbbing brain deliciously soothed by the cool touch of the air are inclined to make a new rule of life, Never be within doors when you can rightly be without.”  -Charlotte Mason

Can you help us with something?

After outdoor lunch on MWF, we are teaching the students to help us fold the picnic blankets, so they stack nicely in the basket…and because it’s a great skill to learn young!  We have been using the method where a student stands on each end of the blanket and holds both corners in their hands, then they walk towards one another to fold it in half.  Next, they grab the four corners again, folding it in half again.  They basically repeat this, smoothing the blanket as they go, until the blanket is in a small square.  The students have been willing and eager to fold the picnic blankets and we are so grateful, however, some extra practice could certainly help them refine their blanket-folding skills.  If you have a chance, can you practice this with your student at home?  It’s a really simple process for any age, and can be mastered if they have a chance to do it regularly.  Thank you so much for your help!

Drop-Off

If you arrive between 7:40-7:50am, your student will head to the gym until it is time to go to class.  At 7:50am, K5-5th grade students will be dismissed from the gym and go to their classes.  If you arrive between 7:50-8:05am, you may drop your student off at the breezeway and he/she may walk straight to their class.  We have loved having parents walk their students to their classes this week, but next week will be a good time to start saying goodbye to them in the breezeway so they can walk to class independently.  

Narnia Challenge

Are you a parent who read the Chronicles of Narnia over the summer?  Please email Erin Drago at edrago@newcovschool.netby Friday, August 29, so you can be entered into the drawing for the prize! 

Family Bible Reading Plan

Our 2025-26 Family Bible Reading Plan will be going through the Old Testament chronologically.  Last year, we completed the New Testament and Pilgrim’s Progress.  This year we will do the first part of the Old Testament and that will continue into next year.  Then, we will start back over with the New Testament and Pilgrim’s Progress.  This cycle of reading the Bible with your family  at home will last three years and  make it possible for you to read through the Bible two times completely while your children are in the Lower Academy.  Our Friday Lower Academy chapel services will coincide with that week’s scripture reading, so your children will be hearing a brief lesson weekly on something from the Bible reading  they heard at home that week.  The Bible reading plan will begin on Monday, September 1, so check the Chronicle on Saturday, August 30 for your first assignment. 

Artist/Composer/Poet Study

Every year, each grade of the lower school will study two artists, two composers, and two poets in their classrooms.  We would love for our families to be continuing this at home in the evenings and on the weekends.  Some great ways to do that are to print several prints from your student’s artist and hang them on the refrigerator or around the house.  You can also have music from your child’s composer playing in the background as you eat dinner or drive to school.  Another idea is to read a poem by your child’s poet before bed every night.  There are many simple ways to incorporate truth, goodness, and beauty into your daily routines!  Here is a list of the artist, composer, and poet for each grade level:

K5:

Poet:  Robert Frost & Carl Sandburg

Artist:  Mary Cassatt & Winslow Homer

Composer:  Leonard Bernstein & William Billings

1st:

Poet:  Alfred Tennyson & John Keats

Artist:  Albrecht Durer & Vincent vanGogh

Composer:  Ludwig Van Beethoven & Antonio Vivaldi

2nd:

Poet:  Walt Whitman & Samuel Taylor Coleridge

Artist:  Fra Angelico & Giotto di Bondone

Composer:  Mozart & Mendelssohn

3rd:

Poet:  Robert Louis Stevenson & Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

Artist:  James Abbott McNeill Whistler & Henry Ossawa Tanner

Composer:  George Gerswin & Aaron Copland

4th:

Poet:  Emily Dickinson & William Wordsworth

Artist:  Leonardo Da Vinci & Michelangelo

Composer:  Claude DeBussy & JS Bach

5th:

Poet:  Ralph Waldo Emerson & Walter de la Mare

Artist:  Rembrandt & Edgar Degas

Composer:  George Frederic Handel & Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky

4th/5th Grade Parents

This year our 4th and 5th grade students will be taking turns to lead the Lower Academy in prayer at lunch every day.  They will do it multiple times throughout the course of the year.  They are welcome to read a prayer or pray on their own.  Feel free to help your student prepare for these times of prayer.