19 August 2008

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Exploring London's Museums

Crusty old exhibits with fierce looking curators, solemn people creaking round dusty rooms, those are my memories of visiting museums. Times change, thank goodness, and now they make a great effort to accommodate children making a museum visit a worthwhile and enjoyable experience for all the family. However, visiting a museum can be overwhelming and tiring if you are not prepared. Here are a few tips.

Here are a few of our favourites. A trip to the British Museum could reveal some fascinating insights into what's contained inside a mummy. For the first time the unopened 3,000 year old mummy of Nesperennub reveals its secrets with the use of high-tech CT scanners. If you are able to tear the children away from whichever screen is captivating them, then they may be interested to learn about some of the first pictorial heroes of Japan, namely the Kabuki Heroes.

All children love to reach out and touch, so why not do it together at the Natural History Museum, and go to the hands-on science centre. Adults and children aged seven to 14 will enjoy handling the animal, plant and geological treasures stored here.

The Imperial War Museum's exhibition 'The Children's War' marks the sixtieth anniversary of the end of the Second World War and runs until 2008

The Victoria and Albert Museum provides Backpacks and Activity Carts at weekends to enhance your enjoyment of the museum and if your teenager looks like a budding Stella McCartney or Julian McDonald then give them the opportunity to make and model their own garment on this course especially tailored for 16-18 year olds or learn more about Fashion Design at this summer school. Their Magic Fingers, Magic Hands event brings a new meaning to hands on, when you get the chance to make your own superhero puppet that can change colour with your own body heat.

The Museum of London's new Medieval London gallery opened on 25 November 2005 and covers the period from the end of Roman rule in AD 410 to the accession of Elizabeth I in 1558. The new larger gallery will display archaeological finds never seen before and reveal the results of over 30 years research.

The Museum in Docklands explores the story of London's River, Port and People. There are some fantastic events where amongst other things you can hear first hand accounts of life around the river from Maeve Dawson, the popular pub landlady, Mary Read, the woman pirate or Listen to stories of the sea, told by Museum staff, and recreate some of the characters to play in a toy theatre. The museum has gone to great lengths to create plenty of other opportunities to connect with life on the Thames including puppet making, floating paper boats and learning how to recreate Toy Theatres.

The London Transport Museum is closed for an 18 month refurbishment from 4th September 2005. Expect the preeminent museum of London's buses, tubes and trains to return better than ever.

With ATMs and telephone banking, your children may never know what it's like to see the inside of a bank. Take the opportunity to visit the Bank of England Museum, professional scribes will demonstrate the art of writing with quill and dip pens, and costumed characters tell of the experiences of Bank of England staff who wrote diaries about their daily life during WW2.

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