Weekly Wrap-Up – July 27th – August 2nd

This is always one of the busiest weeks of the year because not only is it smack dab in the middle of summer, but it’s also the week of Haylee’s birthday!

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We had to say goodbye to good friends in our church family on Sunday, as Surin & Tabitha Motilal and their 3 children transferred to Jacksonville, FL this week. 

 

Their brand new baby, Anthony, is so precious, and I will miss getting my weekly baby fix after church!  It happened to be our potluck day, as well, so they were able to stay and enjoy a meal and visit with us before they got on the road.  There’s a chance they could return here in about 3 years, so we’re hoping to see them again.  Godspeed!

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I took the kids to our favorite Mexican restaurant, Mi Casita, for lunch on Taco Tuesday.

We were also celebrating Haylee’s birthday a little early because her favorite meal is tacos, so the staff graciously sang happy birthday to her and brought out a Mexican Fried Ice Cream on the house.  Yum!

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Haylee turned 10 on Wednesday, July 31st!  Wow.

Just look at how my precious preemie girl has grown! 

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On Haylee’s birthday, we got all dressed up because I’d made a reservation at the English Rose Tea Room for afternoon tea.  We took our good friends, Val and her daughters Ana and Sonia, with us to celebrate.  All the girls looked so pretty! 

      

Haylee actually found her hat at the thrift store and was dying to get it.  But she didn’t have a dress to go with it, to which she calmly told me meant I would just have to buy her a new dress!  LOL.  Crafty girl!  I found the dress at Rock-a-Bye-Baby where I already had some store credit for selling our outgrown kids’ clothes, so at least I didn’t have to spend any more money!  Stinker.

We had such a lovely afternoon with a full tea service, complete with scones, Devonshire cream, jam and curd, tea sandwiches, and custard parfaits.  It was a really fun, girly day!

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Haylee and Hayden will be having their joint birthday party on August 9th.  It’s going to have a British theme, so I thought it would be fun to hit some thrift stores and collect some pretty china so we can do a tea service for the ladies who will accompany their kids to the party. 

We had so much fun finding these treasures, and I think they’re going to be so pretty to serve tea and treats on!

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When we got home from the tea room, we changed our clothes, and I got busy baking up some orange flavored cupcakes (her pick…she wanted to try something new) with whipped cream cheese frosting.  I decided to make them into a number ten shape and frost them like a cake.  I’ve seen them do this in bakeries, and thought it was so cute!  I bought pretty candy flower decorations to put on top of each one, and of course some sprinkles.

   

As soon as her dad got home, we sung to her and had her blow out the 10 candle on top.  Haylee absolutely loved it!

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Then as soon as we’d eaten dinner (she picked chicken nachos for dinner), we picked up our neighbor friends again and Holden, too, and headed off to the Neptune Stage to hear the Virginia Symphony play their Symphony By the Sea concert.

    

It was a beautiful evening!  We took a picture of the view from the top of the parking garage, too.

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So Haylee got to have her extra special day full of fun, and then I had to turn my attention to starting to get ready for the big upcoming Burgess Birthday Bash.  Shew!  So much to do!

Weekly Wrap-Up – July 20th-26th

Welcome to another week in July!

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This summer, I started getting monthly deliveries from Bark Box.  I have two dogs:  a 3-year old purebred yellow lab and a 2-year old brown labeagle (beagle/labrador).  I selected boxes appropriate for my largest dog, and we just break up the snacks for my little dog.  They absolutely love it!  Every month, they receive 4-5 items, including at least one really high quality premium dog toy and several wholesome, organic, all-natural snacks made in either the USA or Canada.  No China garbage for my best friends!  The toys have been super durable, and my dogs have yet to tear up a single one, which is amazing!

As you can see here, they got right to it, playing tug of war with a giant blue fish toy they got this week!  A 6-month subscription is $19/month.  I have priced out the items in the box myself (they also include an inventory sheet inside with retail prices) at Amazon, and the value they quote really is accurate.  The items are significantly more expensive than $19/box.  There’s a really good value with this subscription, and I get to feel good about giving healthy, nutritious, organic snacks to my girls. 

I decided to try the program because I took advantage of a Groupon type offer for half price, but my dogs have enjoyed it so much, and I’ve been so impressed with the contents, that I think we may continue it when our six months is up.  In any case, we’re gathering a nice collection of wonderful toys that really seem to last!

Give it a try!

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We didn’t have too much going on this week, but next week is Haylee’s 10th birthday, so stay tuned for fun times in my next update!

REVIEW: Junior Analytical Grammar and Companion DVDs by Analytical Grammar

My husband and I were really excited to have the opportunity to have Haylee review this wonderful Junior Analytical Grammar and Companion DVDs by Analytical Grammar. 

 

WHAT IS IT?:

Junior Analytical Grammar (Jr. AG) provides a very gentle introduction to grammar concepts for younger students in 4th or 5th grade.  It is designed to be administered over a period of 11 weeks if working 5 days per week.  This level is considered the first step in the Analytical Grammar series and would be followed by Junior Analytical Grammar: Mechanics before moving on to the regular Analytical Grammar program.

Jr. AG covers all the parts of speech, five sentence patterns, the parts of a sentence, and classic sentence diagramming.

The Jr. AG set includes a spiral-bound teacher’s manual and one spiral-bound consumable student workbook for just $39.95. 

In addition, there’s an optional Jr. AG Companion DVD set in which both authors alternate explaining the lessons and going over the first couple of sentences from each worksheet.  They speak directly to the student, thereby teaching the lessons for you.  This is a great convenience for just $19.95.

 

OUR EXPERIENCE:

My daughter, Haylee is almost 10 years old and just started 5th grade a few weeks ago.  I should start by saying that she is not a fan of grammar work, and she made it clear she was not interested in doing a grammar-related review.  However, her last CAT test showed me that while she’s doing fine, grammar-related work is truly her weakest subject area, and she definitely has room for improvement.  So after much discussion, her father and I decided that it was in her best interest to give this program a try.  And honestly, *I* was excited about it, even if she was not!  I say all that to let you know that she is a reluctant participant in any grammar program, by no fault of the program itself!

We set out to work on this program 3 days per week on Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays, so it took us about a week and a half per unit.  All of the units followed the same pattern of activities over a total of 5 actual workdays, and here’s a rundown of what each unit looked like:

• On day 1, Haylee watched the Companion DVD for the lesson instruction for about 10 minutes while following along in the student book.  The speaker went over the first couple of practice sentences with her, pausing to give her a chance to work before explaining the answers.  Then Haylee would complete the rest of the page on her own, asking me for help if she had any questions.  Right off the bat, this helped build her confidence, and she surprisingly wanted to move on and work on the other worksheets, but I told her that spreading it out over a period of days was part of the process of making sure she remembered and had retained what she’d learned.
  
  
• On day 2, Haylee completed worksheet #2 in that unit and we would go over it using the answers in the teacher’s guide. 
  
• On day 3, Haylee completed worksheet #3 in that unit, and we would go over it using the answers in the teacher’s guide.

• On day 4, Haylee did a worksheet called “Playing with Words.”  This was a writing assignment to apply what she’d learned in the lesson and looked at it in a real world kind of way.  This exercise might involve rewriting a paragraph or making up her own sentences using the given part of speech.  This really helped demonstrate to me whether or not she understood practical application of what she’d learned.  After completing the assignment, Haylee had to turn over on the back and complete the “How Did I Do” self-evaluation.  I found that if she was allowed to do this on her own as it was intended, she would over-credit herself for doing it really well, even when she hadn’t satisfied the criteria for such a grade.  So then I’d have to go back and evaluate it myself.  I think the solution for this is that we should look at it together and talk about it as she completes the evaluation so there’s a more accurate assessment of her work.
  
  
• On day 5, Haylee completed the unit test, and I graded it.  The teacher’s manual recommended that you only award points for each correctly identified word rather than deducting points for incorrect answers.  I’d never taken that approach to grading before but found it rather refreshing and less stressful for me as the teacher, and it was certainly less stressful for Haylee as the recipient of the grade!  A grading scale was also provided in the teacher’s manual that was broken down into either mastery, superiority, competency, probationary, or repeat.  This, too, made it easy for me to truly evaluate just how I should view her performance.

With the first unit, Haylee did great with retention of the information we’d covered and did a good job of identifying the part of speech in the sentences. But as we progressed through additional units, it became a little more difficult for her to put it all together in her mind and keep doing it right. This is because each unit’s information is added to the knowledge from the previous lessons, making it incremental. Personally, I like this approach, but for Haylee, who struggles with these concepts, I think she may need to slow down a bit and have some extra practice before moving forward and combining it all together. Since there is no Review & Reinforcement book available until we get to the regular Analytical Grammar level, then the remedy may just be that I will have to make up some extra sentences for her to use for extra practice.

Overall, I really like this program.  I really appreciate the grading approach and the way it allows me to build Haylee up by emphasizing her correct responses instead of tear her down by focusing on her mistakes.  I love the wonderful companion DVD that takes the instruction portion out of my hands and adds a nice variation for Haylee from the routine.  I also really like the incremental approach that brings each unit’s work together with the next one.  And I love that it eventually brings the student’s knowledge to the point where he or she can begin to accurately diagram sentences, because I personally feel like people who can diagram can really learn to write well-composed sentences.

I do feel that Haylee is benefiting from the instruction and the approach of the program, but she may need me to help her along a bit with the practice worksheets, maybe by prompting her to which words she needs to identify or telling her how many words should be identified in each sentence to help clue her in as to whether or not she is on the right track.  She just needs a little hand-holding, I think, until she starts to grasp the concepts more firmly.  I really do love the approach, and at this point, I do plan to continue the program with Haylee.  I do feel it’s “new and different” and not just like every other grammar program out there.  It has its own unique approach, and it appeals to me.

Any dislike that Haylee expressed was not for the program, but for grammar in general.  But in fact, I felt like she was more cooperative with this than other approaches we’ve tried.  I really appreciated that the daily lessons were simple and to the point and not too time-consuming, because it stood a better chance of keeping her attention and not burning her out.

I really do recommend that you give this program a try!  And if you can afford it, give yourself a break from teaching and treat yourself to the Companion DVD, as well.  I found the whole presentation to be refreshing.

Take a look at what other Crew members had to say about this and other products from Analytical Grammar by clicking the banner below.

Weekly Wrap-Up – July 13th-19th

We’re really busy getting ourselves refocused on school again, so we didn’t get out for many activities this week.  How about your family?  Do you school year-round?

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One day after school, we did manage to get out to Ocean Breeze Water Park on the hottest day of the week. We had so much fun this day! Anybody who knows me knows my intense fear of water. I never get my hair or face wet, and I never get water in my ears. But on this day, I got brave enough to put on a life jacket and not only float in the Adventure River on my back, but I also “swam” in the wave pool!

I’ve worn a life jacket before and floated on my back, but I’ve never allowed myself to lean forward on my belly, because I feel panicked at getting my face towards the water.  But I did it, and it was fun!  We had a fabulous time, and I conquered a life-long fear.  Yay!  Haylee and I celebrated by standing under the fountain in the wave pool and letting water pour over my head! 

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Hayden and Steve started playing in an Ultimate Frisbee league, and they go twice a week…once in the sand at the oceanfront and once on the lawn at Regent University. They’ve been sore, but they are loving it!

I think they’ve decided to keep this going as a regular thing. It’s good physical activity, good conditioning for our upcoming soccer season, and a nice opportunity to spend some father/son time, too.

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On Saturday, Haylee and I drove out to pick up the Kids’ Box we ordered from One Harvest.  It’s been at least a couple of months since we last ordered, and we were really pleased with the contents this month!

I figured with Hayden at home for the summer, we could use some more quick-fix meals for breakfast and lunch in the house.  He’ll be turning 15 in August, and he’s somewhat of a vacuum these days when it comes to eating!

So for about $30, we got 8 sausage biscuits (which were delicious, by the way!), 4 Uncrustable sandwiches, 4 spicy chicken sandwiches, several packs of turkey lunchmeat, 2 Schwan’s Panino sandwiches, 4 Sarah Lee carrot cake slices, 4 small Angus cheeseburgers, 4 burritos, 2 bags of chicken nuggets, a box of absolutely delicious 100-calorie oatmeal raisin cookies, a box of crunchy granola bars, and a box of grits (the only thing we won’t use, which I gave to my neighbor).

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Nothing to exciting going on this week!  We’ve had so much rain and thunderstorms lately that it’s been hard to make any plans for after school.  Typical summer weather here!

See you next week!

Weekly Wrap-Up – July 6th-12th

Welcome to another fun-filled week with the Burgesses!

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On Sunday, our old friends, Aaron and Pattie Burleson, were in town from California visiting their daughter and her family, and they all came to church together.  Aaron was our former preacher when we attended Harpersville Church of Christ in Newport News many years ago, and he was also the officiant of our wedding ceremony nearly 20 years ago.  We’ve known them a long time!  I think of them as family.

Needless, to say, it was wonderful seeing them again and having a chance to catch up with each other.  We also happened to be having our monthly potluck after church that day, so they had a chance to stick around and chat for a while.  It was a lovely afternoon!

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On Tuesday, it was the 56th anniversary of IHOP, and they were offering 56-cent short stacks of pancakes.  So of course, I took the kids out for breakfast. 

Yum!  IHOP never fails to provide the perfect breakfast.  It’s our favorite place to go for our morning meal.

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On Friday, we spent the whole day going around getting free food!  It was both 7-11 Day and Cow Appreciation Day at Chick-Fil-A, which meant we’d spend the whole day driving around dressed as cows and eating chicken in various forms and drinking free slurpees!  It’s our favorite day of the year!  It presented quite a challenge, because never before have both special occasions fallen on the same day. 

We managed to pull off our cow garb each time we hit a 7-11 store, LOL.  We ended up starting at breakfast time and hitting 6 Chick-Fil-A stores and three 7-11’s.  That’s 24 meals, which lasted all weekend for 5 of us, and 12 Slurpees.  Shew!  I didn’t have to cook all weekend! 

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On Friday night, we went off to Ocean Breeze Water Park for another dive-in movie night.  This time, we got to see Frozen.  I had rented it from Redbox before, but only Haylee watched it then.  I’d only caught bits and pieces of it, but not nearly enough to even capture the story line.  So we were looking forward to seeing it with all of us together this time.

As usual, we had a great time.  And the movie was wonderful!

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On Saturday morning, I took the kids to another Build and Grow workshop at Lowe’s.  This time, they got to make wooden Turbo characters that were also pullback racers!

Afterwards, they had tons of fun racing their Turbos against each other on the long aisles of the store!

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Then we came home with tons of bags of Quikrete cement mix for the fellas to use to fix the fence.  Remember how it fell down, snapping off 3 posts during the big storm we had a few weeks ago?  Well, it’s been a real pain trying to let the dogs out to go potty when the fence is merely tied off to the playground.  The weekend weather was finally clear enough to get Steve and Hayden out there to fix it right.

With all that manly work going on, I took our last few tubs of blackberries from the fruit share CSA distribution and used them to make this blackberry cobbler.

Man, that was good!  It actually baked 30 minutes longer than it was supposed to, but it turned out great, so I’m kind of glad it baked extra long!  I will definitely be making this again.  Yum!

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That’s a wrap.  It was a busy week of activities and schoolwork, too.  I’m glad we’re still able to fit in some fun stuff, even though we continuing schooling full-time right through the summer.  It still makes summer something for the kids to look forward to.

Until next week…