Rylands Family: School is OVER! Well, sort of...

School is finally over...well, sort of.

We have officially concluded our Middle school and home school year!

Last Thursday we attended Colin's 8th grade awards ceremony.

We were so very proud of him for navigating all the newness of a new family, new culture, new school, new friends....

A.N.D. to top it all off...

Colin shaking hands with Mr. Rogers, Principal at Hanahan Middle School
while receiving his "Distinguished Honor Roll" certificate.

He got STRAIGHT A's!

We were very proud of how hard he worked, despite the language barrier, to continue to learn as much as possible this year.

Each homeroom class wore a different color T-shirt for the Olympic style field day that followed the awards ceremony.

Here he is with his Science teacher, Mr. Thomas. We loved Mr. Thomas and are so appreciative of all he did to help Colin translate notes and tests this year.

Colin at home posing for his camera crazy mother!

Showing me the back of his T-shirt that was signed by his classmates and teachers.

That same evening, the younger boys celebrated the end of their homeschool year with their Legacy friends!

Tommy officially finished 3rd grade

and Cameron, 4th.

We are very proud of our sons and glad that our schedules will lighten up...somewhat.

Now, as we continue to remind our oldest two, learning English is not a school task, but a life task, so....that part of their education, along with practicing their pronunciations will continue.

Tommy will continue working through his advanced language studies with the Michael Clay Thompson Language Arts Curriculum because, well, we

JUST LOVE IT

that much!

We still have a lot of work to do to prepare for next year when all three boys will start school away from home. A very big step for this mama...

Well, as many of you out there in Blogger world are likely experiencing also, Summer also brings with it new routines. Tom and I decided that we needed to be ahead of the curve...so, before we were flooded with tons of "Mama, May I?" questions,

we preempted them with our OWN plans for things like computer time and bedtimes etc...

I know my boys. Well. And I knew that they would see "no school" as a free rein over the household technology! So, Tom and I decided to implement a 2 hour daily screen limit for each child.

They get to choose each day how they will divide their screen time amongst the various machines in the house-- wii, computer (always monitored), DVDs, TV...you get the idea. So far, this new routine has worked fairly well.

So, what in the world will they do the other remaining waking hours?

What will fill their time when it is...?