1. Science Museum
Putting the fizz into physics
Replica of Sir Isaac Newton’s telescope
Fly with the Red Arrows, fire up a pedal-powered TV set or launch a space probe: the Science Museum offers an explosively entertaining day out. With seven storeys filled with wonders, there’s plenty to occupy young and old here. At every turn it’s playtime – whether in the Launchpad zone, with its child-friendly experiments, or Antenna, where kids can study scientific breakthroughs. Best of all is the look of the museum – a sci-fi universe of neon-lit galleries that makes just being there an adventure.
Key Features
1. Who Am I? An intriguing interactive gallery using face-morphing, sex-switching gadgets and personality tests to explore human identity.
2. Atmosphere Play games on the tabletops, walk across oceans and see how the environment adjusts in this climate-change hall controlled by its visitors.
3. Fly Zone Soar with the Red Arrows in a “3-D aerobatic experience” (ages 4 plus), or take the controls in a “Fly 360°” simulator (9 plus).
4. Launchpad This kids’ gallery has lots of hands-on experiments and science shows with audience participation.
5. The Garden This basement playroom invites pre-schoolers to get to grips with the material world, via water troughs, junk instruments and a “building site” climbing frame. It’s mayhem!
6. Eagle capsule This full-size replica of the Apollo 11 craft that put Armstrong and Aldrin on the moon in 1969 is in the Exploring Space gallery.
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The Garden gallery Middle Eagle capsule Right Launchpad gallery
Kids’ Corner
Which came first?
In the Making the Modern World gallery, track down these famous firsts, and put them in date order. Why not add some more of your favourite inventions and make a timeline?
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First model of DNA
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First airliner
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First Apple computer
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First Lego
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First Nintendo Game Boy
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First long-range missile
Home lab
Here are two experiments you can try at home:
Milk magic
Add four drops of food colouring to a saucer of milk. Dip a cotton bud in washing-up liquid, then place the tip of the bud in the milk (without moving it). Watch the colours swirl!
Wonder water
Fill a glass with water and place a sheet of thick card on top, rubbing it against the rim. Turn over the glass, holding the card at first, then let go. It should magically stay in place!
See the future
The Antenna gallery investigates ideas that scientists are working on now. Look out for…
- Crime-busting cameras that can fly through the streets.
- “Uncrashable” cars that drive themselves.
- Robot fish that can detect sea pollution.
What do you think of these ideas – could there be any problems with them?
2. Natural History Museum
Life on Earth – in 70 million specimens
Imagine a dinosaur rampaging around a cathedral. That’s the scene that confronts children entering the hallowed Central Hall of the Natural History Museum – and it’s sure to grip them from the start. A full-size diplodocus dominates the lobby, and a sharp left turn from here leads into the dinosaur gallery, stalked by scores of skeletal monsters from prehistoric times.
This is just the beginning of the museum’s extraordinary expedition through life on Earth. In other halls, a blue whale dangles from the ceiling, leaf ants scurry and an earthquake simulator shakes. On the lower ground floor, the Investigate Centre has shelf after shelf stacked with exhibits for kids to hold and examine. And don’t miss the Darwin Centre, housed in a great white cocoon, which uses wall-to-wall digital wizardry to reveal how the museum collects and conserves its 70 million specimens.
Families should begin their visit at the welcome desk in the Central Hall. The free Explorer backpacks guide under-8s on exciting investigations into the natural world, well-equipped with binoculars, magnifying glass and clue book. There are various Discovery booklets as well, themed on mammals, dinosaurs or rocks for children aged 5–7 and 8–11 (£1 each). For pre-schoolers, there’s the Bookasaurus dinosaur trail (free). In the Darwin Centre, pick up a NaturePlus smartcard, which allows digital specimens to be scanned during a visit, for online investigation at home.
Science Focus specimen-handling sessions take place in the Darwin Centre and selected other galleries: weekdays 10:45am–2pm, weekends 11:15am–3pm. There are also hands-on nature workshops, which take place at weekends and every day during school holidays from 2–5pm.
Free 30-minute Nature Live shows and talks (ages 8 plus) run in the Attenborough Studio, weekdays at 2:30pm, weekends and school holidays 12:30pm and 2:30pm; the studio also screens nature documentaries daily. Monthly Dino Snores museum sleepovers are open to ages 7–11 – minimum five children and one adult per party; £52 per person.
Check the museum website for the school holiday events programme, which typically includes live actors performing in character as famous figures from science. In recent summers, a temporary butterfly house has been erected on the East Lawn (typically Apr–Sep). Finally, there is lots to explore and investigate on the Kids Only web pages, including nature-cams, games and picture galleries.
Key Features
1. Investigate Centre This invites children aged 7–14 to grab trays loaded with skins, skulls, rocks and bones, and view them under a microscope. Open 2:30–5pm daily, weekends and holidays 11am–5pm.
2. Dinosaur Exhibition See a giant animatronic Tyrannosaurus rex lunge to life here. The beast was eight times more powerful than a lion, and could have swallowed a human whole.
3. Treasures Home to an amazing display of specimens and objects, such as the dinosaur teeth that sparked the discovery of these giant creatures, each of the 22 exhibits here has a fascinating story to tell.
4. Quake simulator Walk into a model of a Japanese supermarket and hold on tight as a re-creation of the 1995 Kobe earthquake shudders the floor. Meanwhile, CCTV screens show scenes from the real thing.
5. Central Hall Under the vaulted arches here, the museum’s most astonishing exhibits line up, including its famous replica of a Diplodocus dinosaur skeleton and a model of the extinct, flightless giant moa bird.
6. The Human Biology Zone Head here for an entertaining skip through the body and brain. Scan microscopic liver cells, wander inside a womb, and have a go at fun memory tests and optical illusions.
7. Darwin Centre Journey through the centre’s amazing eight-storey white cocoon and discover incredible specimens, exciting displays and shows, and also see leading scientists at work.
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Dinosaur hall Middle Quake simulator Right Investigate centre
Kids’ Corner
Speak like a whale
Can you communicate like a whale? Pinch your nose and close your mouth, then say “oh” three times, sending the sound echoing through your skull. That’s roughly how whales “speak” – but underwater, their messages can travel up to 100 km (62 miles)!
Flesh eaters!
Curators add 150,000 new specimens to the collection every year, and one team of workers spends every day just munching on meaty carcasses, stripping them down to their bones. Can you guess what they are? For the answer, and to see them in action, visit
www.nhm.ac.uk/kids-only/naturecams.
Dinosaur hunter
You’re never too young to be a naturalist. One little girl became famous for her discoveries – the fossil hunter Mary Anning. When she was just 12, Mary found the first skeleton of an ichthyosaur – a giant sea reptile that lived during the dinosaur era. Look out for Mary’s story in the museum’s Green Zone.
Monkey puzzle
Can you solve this conundrum? You are a macaque monkey, and you find some tasty grains lying on a beach, but they are all mixed up with the sand. What’s an easy way to separate the grains so you can eat them? (Clue: look for a rock pool).
3. Victoria & Albert Museum
A labyrinth of artistic delights
The entrance of the Victoria & Albert Museum, designed by Aston Webb
For a first-time visitor, wandering the 145 galleries of the Victoria & Albert Museum (V&A) can feel like being in a very odd dream: turn a corner, and there’s a hall hung with the enormous Raphael Cartoons; climb a staircase, and there’s a chamber encrusted with Fabergé gems. Room after room is crammed with the world’s most dazzling array of decorative arts – glass, ceramics, sculpture, furniture, textiles, silver and more, spanning five continents and 5,000 years. Perhaps it’s best to forget the museum map and just roam, so the most dramatic galleries come as a breathtaking surprise. The Cast Courts, for example, are dominated by a towering 30-m (98-ft) replica of Rome’s Trajan’s Column, chopped in half to fit under the ceiling.
For children, the V&A can be a little overwhelming, especially since most exhibits are presented very conventionally – don’t expect the interactive thrills of the Science and Natural History museums. However, the British galleries on Levels 2 and 4 include a series of ante-rooms with hands-on activities, one for each historical period. These follow a repeating format, with a dressing-up corner (Victorian crinolines, Tudor gauntlets); a design table (weave a tapestry, make a bookplate); and a construction puzzle (piece together a chair, build a model of the Crystal Palace). The museum also hosts a number of free activities every day, including storytelling, arts and crafts, tours and treasure hunts. The bookable family workshops give families an opportunity to learn from an experienced artist or designer using quality materials (recommended for kids aged 5–12).
The V&A’s toy collection is now held at its sister museum in Bethnal Green (see
V&A Museum of Childhood and Around), but by way of compensation, objects from the defunct Theatre Museum at Covent Garden are displayed in a suite of rooms on Level 3. These are unmissable with kids; they feature backstage film clips from West End shows, a mock-up of pop diva Kylie Minogue’s dressing-room, doll-size models of theatrical sets, and flamboyant costumes from
The Lion King. There are outfits to try on, too.
Kids’ Corner
Writer’s choice
Can you identify children’s author Jacqueline Wilson’s favourite objects at the V&A using her descriptions of them?
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Room 54: “This wonderful wooden couple have been married over 300 years. I love their fashionable clothes.”
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Room 94: “The hunted animals get a chance to fight back in this tapestry: one lady is being eaten by a bear!”
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Room 41: “I’d love to crank the handle of this giant toy and see the man’s arm move and hear the roars and groans.”
On the tiles
In Room 125 of the V&A, find the story of Sleeping Beauty, painted on tiles like a comic strip by the Victorian artist Edward Burne-Jones. Can you think of some speech bubbles to go with the pictures? Why not choose another fairytale, and draw or paint your own cartoon version?
4. Royal Albert Hall
Crown prince of concert venues – home of the Proms
The North Porch of the Royal Albert Hall, viewed from the Albert Memorial
Wagner and Verdi; Einstein and Shackleton; Frank Sinatra and Jay Z; Nelson Mandela and the Dalai Lama; the Beatles and the Rolling Stones – they’ve all appeared here. Does any concert hall in the world have a roster of greats to rival this one? Squatting like a big pink blancmange on the edge of Kensington Gardens, the Royal Albert Hall is the most instantly recognizable performance space in London – and is every bit as iconic on the inside, as its daily front-of-house tours reveal.
The Hall opened in 1871, fulfilling Prince Albert’s vision of a venue “for the advancement of the arts and sciences”, and improbably, it is still part-supported by profits from his Great Exhibition of 1851, staged across the road in the Crystal Palace. Best known today for the pomp and circumstance of the annual BBC Proms classical music season, it also hosts rock, jazz, comedy and circus performances, film launches and Masters tennis.
Children can’t help but feel the glamour of the elliptical red auditorium, with its dome full of flying saucers (part of the complex acoustics) – especially since the upbeat guided tours approach it via the Queen’s retiring rooms behind the royal box. Tours also peek into the balustraded “smoking gallery” up in the eaves, where £5 standing tickets can be had for many shows.
Kids’ Corner
Box clever
The Queen allows her staff, including footmen and maids, to use her box at the Royal Albert Hall. But the men must wear ties – even at pop concerts! If you take a tour, look for a secret switch outside the royal box, which sends a signal to the orchestra pit. Can you guess what it’s for? The answer is revealed below.
