Dinosaurs of China

Over the summer we visited the Dinosaurs of China exhibit in Nottingham. It was great, a beautifully laid out museum with wonderful information and clarity of purpose.

I loved learning about the links between birds and dinosaurs and so did Pickle and Penguin. The fossils they had were amazing and clearly showed the features of dinosaurs reflected in modern birds.

They also had a fantastic tent outside with perfectly pitched activities for the kids to extend their learning through playing with various resources.

All in all a wonderful day and learning experience. Did you take any interesting trips over the summer? I would love to hear about them. Until next time. x

30 Days Wild - Day 24

Today we had a very busy day. We visited the London Transport museum which means most of the day was spent on trains and looking at trains and buses. But looking at public transport and changes to the ways we have traveled, including the changes in pollution I am going to count as a win.....

We had a nice train ride into London, looking out of the windows at gardens and hedges, trees and plants. It was a lovely ride and we saw plenty.

It is not quite wild wild but it is pretty modern wild and Pickle and Penguin had a total blast. If you haven't visited the London Transport Museum and you live in the vicinity, go. It is a great day out and perfect for our two, ages 3 and 1. They have things to look at, things to climb on and dress up in, things to drive and sit in. It is really great. Really.

Fossil Hunting

So.....one of the things we did recently was go on a very special trip! Pickle wanted to go fossil hunting, he is totally dinosaur crazy and kept asking to go Fossil hunting and it was hard to explain to a 3 year old why he is unlikely to find fossils in Hertfordshire.

So we went on a lovely little mini holiday to the Isle of Wight and it was AMAZING. We had the best time and we found real fossils on our two fossil hunting trips. Pickle and Penguin had a lovely time and Pickle is so proud of his dinosaur bone finds.

So these are pieces of hipsolophodon bone, Iguanodon bone and the big lump is a piece of theropod thigh bone.

Pickle found the thigh bone and I could tell it was a good find when the paleontologists jaw hit the floor. She asked if he had just picked it up and scrabbled for her camera to take a photo. Later when we visited the fossil museum another paleontologist took some more photos of the bone and showed us some marks on the surface which he explained were tooth marks. Eeek, exciting.

We saw the footprint casts on the beach and were told a lot of information about the rocks and the food prints. I remember bits and I have to say I found it quite fascinating. Our guides were fantastic and we all had a great time.

Before Pickle was into dinosaurs I knew just a few, I have learnt so much from him and from his interests. We have really thrown ourselves into the dinosaur things as a whole family and I love it. I really love the dinosaur thing, it is amazing, truly amazing.

We visited Dinosaur Isle museum and Dinosaur Farm, both are really interesting places with a lot of information about discoveries on the island. Pickle particularly liked the models set out to play with a Dinosaur Farm and Penguin loved the tooth sieving activity they had there. I must have a look at setting something up similar at home...

Dinosaur Isle has a lot of interesting displays of fossils as they were found in situ and Pickle was particularly enamored by the animatronic dinosaur demonstration. Both are well worth a visit for the dino enthusiast!

Until next time.....

Ventura Wildlife Park

We live in Hertfordshire, UK at the moment. Not too far from us is the Van Hage flagship store in Great Amwell. We moved here around 10 months ago and heard about this place fairly early on as they had a very nice and free animal garden. The children loved visiting here and they had some interesting animals to see. Over the winter it has been closed for refurbishment, their enclosures needed a fair amount of work to repair and improve them as they have been well used and in a few cases have seemed a little crowded. 

We have missed visiting the Animal Garden as it is quite a nice little trip to get Pickle and Penguin outside and they love seeing the animals. It is also a lovely free activity as nowadays finances are always on the tight side. Anyway, they haven't given a date for when it will reopen so we decided to visit the Ventura Wildlife park which is on the Van Hage site to see what it was like. We had a lovely family afternoon out.

It was a lovely little trip. It is not very big, a modest little zoo with an enthusiastic staff. Tickets are not expensive and they have a few different animals to see with plans for expansion. The enclosures are clean and well kept and as it is a new zoo it all looks rather smart. I would recommend a visit for young ones if you have some time to spare but don't want a full day out or don't have the budget for a larger zoo. 

We were lucky enough to catch a glimpse of a baby wallaby sticking its little head out of its' mothers pouch. 

Not the best photo I am afraid. It is always rather tricky taking photos in zoos! We met a few animals at one of the keeper talks and saw some animals I haven't seen before. It was small enough even for Penguin to walk all the way around and she enjoyed the bird enclosures very much. 

We decided to upgrade my ticket and Pickles ticket to an annual pass so we can pop in as often as we like. Perfect for an afternoon out and as Penguin is still free I can take her whilst Pickle is at preschool!

Whilst we were getting our annual pass I had a little chat with the owner of the zoo and it was lovely to hear about how enthusiastic he is about the conservation work they are doing. I am looking forward to seeing them expand and enjoying many visits over the next year!

Me xx

A New Start

Hi, how are you? My name is Sam and I am a stay at home Mum of two. I have a 3 year old boy, Pickle, and a Penguin loving 1 year old girl. I love crafting, in particular crochet, and spending time with my husband, Yellow bean, and children.

In a past life I was a secondary science teacher, something I both loved and hated simultaneously. For the new year I wanted to get back to my science roots.

Between Christmas and New Year we took the sprogs to the science museum in London. They were too young. Almost everything was out of their sight line and little was interactive. It is a fantastic museum but not so good for toddlers. We all had a great time - don't get me wrong, they peered at things for a split second and ran around.

The Garden in the basement was great but a faff to find and over crowded. The staff were great and numbers were limited. We had a to wait to get in and they bought round giant slinky toys for the kids to play with. I really can't fault the staff or facilities and I am sure it is great for older kids just not toddlers, we were not their target market.

The bubble show promised to be perfect for our bubble loving two but it was a bit of a slow start and Pickle got scared right at the start and the bubbles didn't flow fast enough to distract him so we had to leave.

We had a great day but it wasn't the most appropriate trip for my kids and it wasn't the hands on introduction to 'big science' I wanted it to be.

So....I bought this book.....


Image taken from amazon.co.uk

And this year we are going to choose one topic a week and get experimenting! The book arrived today, Pickle chose his first topic - Water Resistance - so tomorrow we are going to get started! It looks pretty accessible for Penguin too - lots of crayons and paints so I think she will be able to join in.

From a first look I think it will be great. Simple, quick activities that I can pick from at the start of the week to make sure I have the right stuff around. I hope that it will spark some interest and give us some fun activities to do when Pickle is not at preschool! (He starts monday afternoon, Ahhhhh my baby, and also Yay! Penguin naps!)

Until next time... x