School Year Wrap-up
The 2023-24 school year at New Song has come to a close, and our students have grown so much having experienced two full semesters of academic instruction, individual tutoring, wonderful off-campus educational outings, and engaging guest speakers.
Each student has greatly improved in their reading, writing, and Math abilities thanks to an additional weekly writing class, a Reader's Theater program, and fun Math activities that we did with them each Friday. This growth has helped them gain much-needed confidence to persevere through challenges in their daily curriculum.
New Song Teacher Rachelle Alspaugh emphasized the importance of reading and writing throughout.jpg)
the entire school year. Each day students were encouraged to read and write book reports. Incentivized by “school buck” rewards throughout the second semester, the students wrote their own short stories which were accumulated and bound into a class book at the end of the school, giving them their very first publishing experience! We ended the spring semester by meeting three different authors who came to the classroom and personally shared their writing and publishing journeys.
In their Bible classes on Mondays and Wednesdays, our Student Life Assistant, Julie Hart, took our students on a chronological walk through the Bible, starting with the Old Testament stories and finishing up with the New Testament. The students' understanding of the Bible as one continuous story really solidified over the year. They began to eagerly anticipate Bible class as the year progressed, and their Bible knowledge grew exponentially.
Miss. Julie planned several school field trips this school year, the final one being a trip to Conner Prairie where the students got to apply what they had been learning from their Indiana history class.
In their Leadership Class students studied 40 different traits that a godly leader demonstrates, and
biographies of several key leaders in our history were read aloud during the class. The students wrote essays on each leader we studied and told what inspired them the most about their lives. By the end of the year, the kids were able to write self-reflections about traits that they demonstrate well, traits that are difficult for them, and the one trait they have a desire to improve upon.
We are so grateful to Miss Rachelle and Miss Julie for the well-rounded education they provided the New Song students, and we are very proud of the kids for all of their diligent efforts this school year!