As part of our homeschooling (and life in Britain), the kids entered the BBC’s 500 Words 2014 Essay Contest.    The contest is for kids 13 and under.  All submissions must original writings and be 500 words or less.  The top 50 winners may be published in a collected work.  The top 6 will be read on air.  The winner receives radio presenter Chris Evans’ height in books (6’2″).  Second place receives radio presenter Alex Jones’ height in books (5’9″).  Third place receives the contestants height in books.  The prospect of that many new books to read got the kids excited.   Find out more about it here: http://www.bbc.co.uk/500words

Yesterday they submitted their essays.  They will go up against some stiff competition.  The judges received over 118,000 essays.  We are proud of them for taking the initiative and writing some great essays.

Yesterday we posted Meg’s story.  Today we share Joshua’s entry.  Enjoy his account of one his favourite pastimes.

Life from a Lego man’s view

I know what your thinking: Why is one of my legs blue and the other tan?  Well let me just say this, the only legs available in the spare drawer at the time were blue.  Plus, I’m sore from hopping on one foot for a week. So you can see that I’m not your fashionable type who worries about their clothes.   No, the only thing I’m concerned about is my hair.

I’ve got nothing to do all day, so I think about stuff. For instance what the giant human does all day when he, what do they call it?  I think it’s called going downstairs.  Strange huh?  But it’s not my job to worry about what the boy does when he isn’t playing with us.

I also write in this book.  It helps to pass the time until night.  At night we all come out of the ‘Lego bin’ , as the human calls it, and party and talk for the first time all day.  Humans might call us nocturnal, but we don’t sleep all day.  In fact, we hardly sleep at all.  We just sit still when he’s in the room then move a bit when he’s not.

Some days, he doesn’t play with us at all.  You should hear the ‘Lego bin’ council when he doesn’t even look at us all day.  “I’m so bored.” or “John is lucky.  He got played with today.”  But at least we came with the humans.  The boy could have been gentler when he packed us up though.   But no!  He got a shoe box and dumped us in all together.  Then next thing we know, we’re in a place called England.  Just think!  All the way from America to England!   I love it here.

I hope I get to go outside soon.   Two mini figures went and when they came back, they said they had visited a cathedral in town.   And get this, the humans are building a smaller cathedral out of Legos!   WOW!   That blew my plastic head.  I hope I get to see it soon.

There are some strange Lego people on the other side of the bed.   They say the come from Middle Earth or something like that.  Very strange.    And don’t even get me started on the Star Wars people.  They are peculiar on so many levels.  Except for that Princess Leia.  I hope I catch her eye soon.  Uh oh.  The human is coming up!  Gotta go!

Josh the Lego Man