Day’s out

Whether you are a London resident or visiting the city, the National History Museum is a must go for kids no matter what their age is. It is one of the most visited museums in Britain and contains hundreds of supreme exhibitions. The Natural History Museum is absolutely free to visit, and there is great transport links to the impressive building.

I first visited this museum with my sister and my son, when he was only ten months old and we all absolutely loved it. Two years later I took him back and the magic is definitely still there. We arrived at lunch time and the queue was massive, although we were told that we would probably be waiting for an hour and a half to get in, the queue went down within twenty minutes or so.

The busiest area of the museum by far is the blue zone which contains the Dinosaur gallery. You can find yourself queuing for over an hour just to see the dinosaurs due to popular demand. My advice would be to get there early and to view the gallery immediately, or wait until later in the day when the queues have calmed down. During the school holidays, you can pre-book tickets which also improve your position in the queue.

Whether you or the children have a little or great interest in dinosaurs, it is definitely worth seeing.  The model dinosaurs are a spectacular feature and will definitely capture any child’s imagination. The large mechanical T-Rex in the dinosaur gallery is absolutely remarkable and it looks extremely real. All of the children seemed mesmerized when they saw it, as did some of the adults. However be aware of the smaller mechanical dinosaurs on display, as soon as my little boy saw them he started moaning at me to take one home with us because they are so adorable!

There are a few interactive touch screen computers at the end of the dinosaur exhibition, which allow children to do some extra exploring. They can then print a ticket which contains a bar code, allowing the user to access their scrapbook online. It is a fantastic educational tool, full of fun facts, photographs, creative activities, games and quizzes. It would come in really useful for any homework projects.

Human biology is also in the blue zone and this was probably my favourite section. There are plenty of facts and figures, but also loads of interactive exhibitions which demonstrate how the brain and various organs in the human body work, and how babies are made. Visiting this museum can definitely help parents when it comes to having that awkward chat about the birds and the bees. Not only will it make the situation less embarrassing, it will also provide plenty of educational facts for you and your child. I personally had a lot of fun testing my memory, which wasn’t as bad as I thought it would be.

The green zone has a really fascinating insects exhibition, which may leave you feeling itchy, but the kids really enjoyed it. Although I am not a fan of creepy crawlies in any sort of way, I did learn some really interesting facts and we did spend quite a bit of time in this area as the exhibition was great fun.

There are some sections of the museum that we missed out on completely such as the orange zone and the Darwin exhibition. Although we were there for four and a half hours we ran out of time, therefore I would strongly advice that anybody visiting the museum should dedicate a whole day there, to avoid any disappointment. The day can be so inexpensive, yet keep the whole family entertained for hours on end.

I am already planning my next trip to the museum with my son, so that we can go back and visit the areas that we sadly missed out on. Getting your children interested in museums from an early age can definitely help them in their education.

Overall I rate the Natural History Museum a whopping 5/5 and I would 100% recommend that you visit this place with your family.