Storytelling at Museum in the Docklands

For the two bigger Buggies a trip on the Docklands Light Railway (DLR) is a trip out on its own; as we left Stratford station Buggy-D wistfully remarked "This is my favourite railway in the whole world"
"Now, there's an accolade" I replied.
"Where?"

The Museum in the Docklands is housed in an old warehouse on the West India Quay, despite the time of year the weather was fine so we decided to eat our packed lunch sitting on a bench on by the side of the water. The added temptation of a group of boats to look at kept the Buggies more than happy. In order to generate some interest in London Bridge I told them the story of The Peddler of Swaffham in which a Norfolk peddler makes a journey to London Bridge only to find everything he wanted was back at his home in Swaffham.

Next step is into the museum and checking the times; the staff on reception didn't know it was happening, not a good start, but after a bit of investigation and talking on walky talkies the times were ascertained and we made our way into the Mudlarks education area.

Buggie-D refers to the Museum in the Docklands as "the stone museum" because of an exhibit in Mudlarks which shows how rivers pull stones down a river; the area also houses a soft play area (for the younger kids) and various docklands and river Thames related activities. As it turned out both buggies were more excited about the soft play on this visit and pursuading them to join me in the main museum was tricky.

The event that we had come for, aside from the general museum which I'll talk about soon, was about London Bridge and set on the top floor of the museum next to a model of the 17th Century bridge (image from creative commons) complete with the houses and shops. I wasn't expecting anything in particular but was a little surprised to find that the story told was.... "The Peddler of Swaffham." I was half expecting Buggie-D To point out as mistakes any deviations from my version but, thankfully, he just enjoyed it for what it was. The group attending was small and, as can be expected with an audience of under 5s, attention wandered, but the storyteller did a good job of keeping it going and, I think, both buggies got a lot out of the second version of the day. However little use was made of the model, as I expected would have been, a prop that, to me, could have really set the scene against the London bridge up the river.

The museum its self is excelent, I've visted it in the past; sadly we didn't have as much time to look round it as I would have liked but both older buggies liked the the information about whaling (Buggie-D's love of all things natural has extended very much into the kingdom of aquatic mamals) the museum has in its collection a narwal spike and the lower jaws of a sperm whale; also various tools from London's old whaling industry. The mocked up docklands street was also popular as was the WWII exhibition; Buggie-D is beginning to put things together aboutt his piece of history and is aware that it is a huge war fort against Germany, this pressents a problem to him as he loves Germany due to a holiday in Berlin "they're not baddies now are they?" he asks pleadingly. In general this was a very good day out, in fact, as we left the museum an accolade was perching by the window, glancing in it took to the air flying along West India Quay towards Canary Whaff before flying off into the distance; it very nearly made an bigger apearance its self.

What: Storytelling
Where: Museum in the Docklands
Getting there: Near Canary Wharf Station; map
Cost: Adults £5 (annual ticket); children free
Again: Yes, probably when an interesting event is on
Try: Museum of London (BuG entry)

Museum of London

The Museum of London tracks the history of London and Londoners from prehistory to the present day. On the whole the museum does live up to its good reputation, however the Bug, as always is interested in what the buggies will make of it and here, sadly, it falls down. The few hands on exhibits are aimed at older kids or adults; computer terminals provide more information but that only results in requests to watch the green anaconda (not something I would normally write in connection to this museum!) add to this the generic nature of most of the exhibits makes it hard to keep them engaged or interested in what they were looking at.

The great fire exhibition and video interested them both, as did the prehistoric stone tools. The models of buildings from Roman London also caught their attention and we could talk about the origins of London Bridge; but after that we found little else.

In conclusion, this is a good museum, but clearly not intended for children so young. If that's what your looking for try the Museum in the Docklands.

What: Museum of London
Where: City of London, map
Getting there: Between Bank and Barbican stations
Cost: Free
Again: Possibly when they are older
Try: Museum in the Docklands
Top tip: Walk from the Barbican station is almost all under cover. Also, an indoor picnic area is provided so bring your own lunch.

Human Biology - Natural History Museum

We have two children (D 3 years and B 2 years) we are expecting a third referred to as "Project X" this leads to inevitable questions from D; enter Natural History Museum.

The Human Biology exhibition is in the blue zone close to their famous Dinosaurs. The exhibition opens with cells with microscopes set up to view examples (D looked and told me he saw something, I've no idea what!). We move quickly on to reproduction, which was a bit of a time jump for me as it is exactly the same exhibition as when I was growing up in the early 80s with some improvements to the graphics on the video.

Both D & B enjoyed videos of a sperm entering an egg (now a subject of D's drawings at nursery) and a baby growing inside a womb.

A feature of the reproduction part is a model of a giant baby with sound recorded from inside a pregnant woman's womb (see photo). This terrified D to the point that to continue he need to run through as fast as possible; B, however, loved it.

Further on demonstrations of muscles and nerves and joints and things proved interesting to both. The exhibition continued, however, sadly we ran out of time.

What: Human Biology
Where: Natural History Museum; map
Cost: Free - with a suggested donation
When: Permanent
Going again: Yes
Similar: London's Museums of Health & Medicine