Having Fun With the Kids – Great Ideas for Family Days Out
By Donna Pamenter, Representing Tish Tash Toys in Shenfield, Brentwood, Essex. See www.tishtashtoys.com
Need ideas on where to take the children over the Christmas holidays?
Try your local museum or make a day of it and travel by train into town. Kids absolutely love the train journeys. You may be surprised by what your local museums' have to offer you and your young family!
If you are able to get into London with the children, go and check out The V&A Museum of Childhood. Free admission, easy to get to by tube or bus. It won the Kids Love London Award 2004 for the favourite children's attraction, as nominated by London schoolchildren and voted for by the public. Read more about Kids Love London:
The V&A Museum of Childhood based close to Bethnal Green tube station has touring exhibitions - the current one starting in Cornwall in January, named Space Age: Exploration, Design and Popular Culture.
Space Age can be seen at the following venues:
Royal Cornwall Museum, Truro
24 January - 19 April 2009
City Museum and Art Gallery, Plymouth
9 May - 26 July 2009
Bradford One Gallery, Bradford
15 August - 1 November 2009
Stockwood Discovery Centre, Luton
21 November 2009 - 7 February 2010
South Shields Museum, Newcastle upon Tyne
27 February - 16 May 2010
New Walk Museum, Leicester
6 June - 29 August 2010
Details of the exhibition
This major exhibition explores people's fascination with space. It shows how this fascination has influenced popular culture, from literature and comics to film, design and merchandising, including toys. Real space objects are displayed together with classic space-inspired designs and childhood objects. The relationship between reality and fantasy is a fascinating one which is examined within the exhibition. The reality of how space exploration has developed and how space fantasy and science fiction worlds have been created in people's imaginations is revealed.
This will be a cosmic day out for boys and girls of all ages, and if your little ones are into space age toys, don't miss our wonderfully designed Pintoy Spaceship with Launching Pad. Maybe, in many years to come this current day toy with it's wheeled launch pad will be in a toy museum (a floating museum, reached by teleporter thats beams you up, of course).
There are some great kids' pages on the Toy Museum website, with lots of ideas and things to make & do. To tie in with the space theme, the design your own space bedroom page may be popular with the boys in your family. The V&A Museum of Childhood aims to encourage everyone to explore the themes of childhood past and present. It houses the UK's national collection of childhood-related objects, one of the finest in the world, dating back to the 16th century, for example the yo-yo is believed to have originated in ancient China. The galleries are designed to show the collections in an accessible way to both adults and children of all ages.
Most local museums have a programme of exhibitions, daily activities during holidays and seasonal events. Check via your local council website or google 'What's On'. Don't think its just for school age children, I took my four year old son and a friend to our local museum, Oaklands Park in Chelmsford and they had a great time. They loved the interactive exhibitions, which included Red Indian dressing up outfits, a wigwam and drums. The permanent living beehive and the noise activated cave man are never overlooked by my children. There's also a children playground and parkland to run off steam. Great on the pocket too!
