Mark you calendars! The New Classical Academy will host our first open house on Tuesday, January 17, 2006. The event will take place from 5 to 8 pm at Christ United Methodist Church in Weaverville. The school's founders and directors, Kate Hyde and Kelly Homolka will give a presentation at 6:30. There will be an opportunity to view student work in a typical classroom, review curriculum material, and try out hands-on math activities. We will also hand out registration packets for fall 2006, outline our admission process and answer questions.

From Asheville: 19/23 N to exit 19A "25/70 Hot Springs, Marshall". Go immediately through a light. Go 1 mile, through a second light and then look for the first road on the R "Garrison Branch Rd. #2." Look for signs and balloons. The church is the first driveway on the left.

On our last Friday before break there was a party atmosphere at the home school enrichment class. Kelly brought in a keyboard and was surprised to learn that out of 22 students, 16 play the piano- beautifully! Kate and Kelly were also graced with gifts and good cheer from our students, and we celebrated Luther's birthday with a cake and egg nog.

Have you seen us around town lately? The New Classical Academy printed its first brochure, and they have been posted everywhere parents and children go. Did we miss your favorite place? Let us know. Think someone you know would like one? Send us their address, and we'll mail it out. In other news, the great teacher search is on. If you know someone you think would be a good match, let us know. We are particularly interested in teachers with a specialty in Latin or the sciences.

Many parents have asked how much homework students will have, and how many hours the distance learning students will spend doing their school work at home. This depends on the age, ability and motivation of the student, but we do have some general guidelines. There is no homework in our K-2 class. We do encourage these parents to read with their child, particularly to informally follow up on our history and science topics.

In our 3rd-5th grade class the student can expect about two hours of homework a week. A distance learning student can expect roughly four hours. These numbers roughly double for our middle school students with four hours of homework a week and eight hours for our distance learning students.