Athena Homeschool

I thought  I would share this poem I wrote some time ago.

A Child of the Countryside

Nests and stones

And animal bones,

Sharks teeth and anemones

From long ago ancient seas

And a hippo’s jaw

Behind the bedroom door!

A child of the countryside

Certainly lives there!

Feathers and leaves

And muddy sleeves,

Slugs and snails

And slimy trails,

A child of the countryside

Certainly lives there!

Toads in the bath and newts in the sink

(Just what will visitors think?)

Bits of dinosaur fill the shed

Shells and flints beneath the bed,

A child of the countryside

Certainly lives there!

‘Tidy your room!’ hear mother declare

She’s in a state of utter despair

For a child of the countryside

Certainly lives there. 

©Melissa Lumley 30/8/00

My middle ds Louie has always suffered from what we call ‘Huckleberry Finn Syndrome’ – he is generally to be found barefoot, caked with mud, hanging upside down from a tree branch.  He will invariably also have some creature about his person – a frog, a snail, a centipede…  And his pockets will be filled with fossils, shells, string, broken pottery sherds, skeletal remains, dried mud pies…. and of course scattered amongst those more natural items the obligatory handful of Lego bricks unlike the original Huckleberry.  As I was sitting here at the laptop checking my emails and watching my youngest ds 4 I realised that Erik is fast following in his brother’s footsteps.  His once-white Winnie the Pooh T-shirt is covered with chocolate milk and mud and some purple sticky unidentifiable substance; his face is covered with chocolate milk; his hands are muddy; his hair looks like a bird’s nest.  No matter how consciencious I am in preening and grooming him first thing – thorough ablutions, smart clean shirt; polished shoes; brushed hair – by mid morning he looks like a little wild woodland-and-wayfare waif.  His pockets contain a broken snail shell, several pebbles, some decaying leaf litter and a dead woodlouce.  Yes, our youngest has definitely developed Huckleberry Finn Syndrome too.  I have read lots of articles on homeschooling that bizarrely state that homeschool children are always prim, smart, beautifully turned out, and always quiet, reserved and polite. Ok, polite is the only single term there that can be applied to my boys.  They are generally noisy, wild, dishevelled, scruffy, mud-caked ragamuffins with scrapes and bruises.  Only our eldest ds 14 has escaped this syndrome – he is our geek.  He will only climb a tree if there’s a computer game in the treetops.  There’s very little he cannot do with computers.  He’d no doubt climb the tree if there was a corpse up there too with his gory interest in pathology and forensics (he’s CSI’s greatest fan).  Then he’d build a Lego model of the crimescene.  Now I’m going to somehow persuade Erik into the bathroom so I can removed the chocolate stains, get him into clean clothes and then have a funeral for the unfortunate woodlouce. 

I thought during this rare semi-quiet moment I would tell you about one of the activity books I have self-published for homeschoolers.  It’s called ‘My World, Your World’ and is a gentle introduction to world religions for younger children.  The blurb on the advertising page reads: “A gentle introduction to world faiths for younger children. Ideal for homeschool use. Meet eight children of different faiths from around the world and read their creation stories. Includes space for ‘your own creation story’ activity”.  It’s available from Lulu.com and costs £2.98 +p+p for the paperback or £1.50 for printable download.  You can see this and a few of my other books at:

http://stores.lulu.com/store.php?fAcctID=728724

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I was sitting here with my laptop and my cup of tea and my youngest ds 4 walked into the livingroom and tipped out a tub of 1000 Lego bricks all over the floor. Then my eldest ds 14 comes into the room to show me the huge fancy articulated Star Wars style space station thingy he has spent about three hours building with Lego bricks; he then proceeds to ask if using the Lego designer programme on the PC counts as computer art on his lesson log.  Then middle ds 12 comes to show me the Harry Potter lego game he’s been playing.  As I sit here with typing away I suddenly realise that my entire life actually revolves around tiny plastic building bricks.  They are everywhere.  They are taking over.  They are under the sofa cushions, in the sugar tub, in the bread bin, on the floor, even in the cat’s litter tray….  These seemingly harmless multi-coloured plastic playthings are brainwashing the children and attempting to take over my entire home and life!  SO BEWARE!  If you have not yet encountered the Lego years, be prepared for them to invade every niche of your life.  Maths – counting Lego bricks.  Art – building with Lego bricks.  English – spelling out words with Lego bricks.  Science – do Lego models float?  Life Skills – tidying up Lego bricks.  Computer Skills – online Lego games.  Perhaps once these little plastic blocks have invaded every home on the planet they will reveal their ultimate purpose and become the dominant life form!  Happy Model Building One and All! xx

I have discovered homeschool journal!  So here I am writing my first entry.  But who the heck am I anyhow?  OK, give me a short while to work that out for myself then I’ll let you know! My name is Melissa, I am married to Graham, and we have three wonderful (most of the time) sons we are homeschooling – Jack 14, Louie 12 & Erik 4.  We live in West Sussex, south-east England, on planet Earth (most of the time).  We live in a small country village not far from the sea in a place famous for it’s dragon (google Lyminster knucker!).  We have homeschooled from day one, none of the boys ever having been to school.  We are pretty traditional and classical in our homeschooling approach, I love order, routine and timetables – though there are certainly frequent occasions the timetable goes out the window just to do whatever.  And we have been known more than once to unofficially take the day off and then log watching CSI as science; picnicing on the beach as a field trip; and pillowfighting as physical exercise!  Anyway, whatever we get up to I’ll try to remember to write about it here!

bye for now xx