stuffed real animals - scared, sad or fun aged 3?

[nct73]

I am going to talk DD (2.9) to Kelvingrove museum when we visit Glasgow next week. There are various stuffed real animals (taxidermy) there but in particular there is an elephant & a giraffe in the main hall. What kind of reaction should I expect? How do I explain them? or am I complicating things and thinking too much?

[NightShoe]

Hmm, perhaps you are overthinking. I've taken DD 3.2 to museums and it hasn't really crossed my mind to offer any indepth explanation of the stuffed animals TBH.

[MANATEEequineOHARA]

You are thinking too much!!! I used to go to Tring Museum, which is all stuffed animals, loads when I was little, I kind of knew they were once real and are now stuffed, but I just thought it was so cool. It is only now I am an adult I think taxidermy is a little odd!

[DMonabonfireinadeepdarkwood]

ds & dd (5 & 3) went to a full-on stuffed animal exhibit a few weeks ago. Ds was slightly freaked at first - and wanted to check they were dead. For some reason it was the small, familiar animals that they felt sorry for (the family of squirrels got a big ahhh) The larger/wierder animals were less enagaging, tbh.

They got used to it very quickly, & enjoyed it a lot.

[BiscuitStuffer]

DD 2.8 would find it scary.

And we saw a life sized model of a lioness at the zoo at her level and she freaked!