To ask if you visit museums?

[Aloezebra]

Slightly shamelessly doing a bit of anecdotal “research” for my degree but also just generally interesting in people’s opinions because it’s a topic I love!

Do you go to museums/galleries? If yes, why and if no why not?

Also do are you more likely to go if there’s some sort of activity for your kids to do?

@Aloezebra I think it's because I prefer visiting historical sites. I find museums dry and a bit of a chore. I tend to whizz around and cherry pick anything I might find interesting .
I have to feel something to be interested and understand it and museums just don't manage that for me. But stand on a battlefield, in a castle, on a landing beach and I'm hooked.

This exactly. The only useful child activity is a worksheet or something they can fill in with us or look for things as we go round. They wouldn't want to join in. with anything else.

Yes and yes.

Activities dc (9 and 12) have enjoyed

at our local roman museum has a dress up like a roman area, at half terms they'll do things like mosaic making crafts. The cathedral has stained glass window making activities or stone mason-ing.

Science museum in London my dc find a bit meh, - its just looking at old trains and cars which they find boring. However they love the wonderlab upstairs with the talks and interactive bits. They really liked the Winchester science museum because its all play based learning. The petrol museum in kuala lumpur was their favourite museum ever, they still talk about it!

Basically, they don't enjoy looking at things in cabinets. Thats just not interesting to them. But allow them to handle fossils, or do a crayon rubbing, or physically interact with the things and they're entertained and engaged.

If we go somewhere more adult then I'll try and turn it into a silly game - my dad used to take me to the National Portrait Gallery and play spot the ugly baby in the paintings (a lot of the old aristocratic families had far too much inbreeding).

We all love museums and children's activities are a plus for me.

Best children's activities we did in museums

1. Ashmolean art workshops (actually two, one was stamping and one was making a coin). The art was high quality and we learnt things about the exhibition from doing it.

2. Orkney museum. Smashed crockery. You have found this pot at an archaeological dig. Work out how it goes together and sellotape it back into a pot. Just an absolutely simple way of demonstrating that archaeologists don't know what the pieces are till they go back together.

3. dressing up always everywhere.

4. Cromwell's house in Ely ran a civil war escape room which was wonderful for our older kids

5. I love a story time but it's a little bit stressful whether a young child will listen and not be disruptive. Always provide a discreet opportunity to escape.

Worst museum experience ever: standing in the brand new Wonderlab wondering why it looks so much like the Launchpad but you have to pay now and queue up for the slides. Slowly realising that the bits of Launchpad they didn't put back all related to renewable energy in some way. Sponsored by an oil company. I haven't been for a few years do don't know if it's any better now.

Yes because of the history for me and the discovery for the kids.
Sometimes we will go if they have events on , local one had a quiz / hunt with a prize.

Yes
Went more when my kids were small, than now.

Love a gallery or a museum (partial to a distillery tour also) children always came with us. We never had any childrens activities just talked with them about what we were looking at.
OurDD studied history of art at university which has only made her love them more and hearing her talk about art is a joy. My parents never took us and DH wasn’t taken by his parents either.

For under 5s: Stories, colouring, crafts, touching things. Expect a very superficial engagement with the content.

The best things we have done with DS was Toddler Storytime at National Maritime Museum (a song, a glove puppet of the ship’s rat and seagull, and a story), and a Christmas Craft session at Winchester Cathedral (a craft session loosely related to Christmas, and a story about a Bethlehem donkey).

Whipsnade Zoo also has great talks from the keepers - short, points out interesting facts about the animals, and has props for the children to touch.

The worst was a session at the Horniman about ichthyosaurs - it was marketed as suitable for age 3-8, DS was 5 and is absolutely obsessed with dinosaurs and marine reptiles (watches Dinosaur Planet and Walking with Dinosaurs so able to understand adult information), but this was just a dry talk about the history of finding and interpreting fossils. Nothing to look at or touch, no stories about the actual dinosaurs, nothing for the children to do except listen. He’d have been perfectly happy with a picture of an ichthyosaur to colour in, and an explanation of what they ate or something.

Yes. I do find a lot quite dull though. There needs to be something interactive or talking at me.

Yes and yes. But we went pre dd as we both find museums interesting (I wanted to be an archaeologist when a child!). As pp say a trail is ace -for that age range maybe small (potentially fluffy) objects/toys to spot is great. The thing my dd enjoys best are craft things, a local museum to us - hartlebury castle puts on craft sessions every holiday that lure families in and then my dd is very happy to spend a couple of hours round the rest of the house and museum, but she is a very craft oriented child!

Yes, lots.

Yes, yes. My main beef with museums is that the caption thingies a) never properly explain things - I want more depth! and b) are positioned too far away from the item they're describing (poorly). Also, timelines! Put them everywhere!
Also, stop trying to 'create an atmosphere' (ahem, Stonehenge exhibit at the British Museum) instead of a proper video that shows where things were when.

Yes, I do go to museums, but generally only on holiday, or a day out. So not that often.
I go to learn interesting things I suppose. I go to fill a few hours.

My dc are adults now, but when they were small, it was always a bonus if there were some sort of trail for them to follow. Also buttons to press or levers to move.

Yes
N/A

Love visiting museums (and previously worked in one). I especially love visiting small, obscure (ish) museums like Bygones near Torquay, Grant Museum of Zoology in Bloomsbury, The True Crime Museum in Hastings. Used to love the Britain at War Experience nr London Bridge.

My favourite is what is now called the Museum of Brands in Notting Hill.

Kids are adults now but they got dragged round with promises of cake in the cafe.

Yes and yes, although my dc are getting a bit big for kids activities at 11 and 14.

We were at the Royal Armouries in Leeds only 2 weeks ago.

For younger children: a story, dressing up, colouring, handling objects of low value, make the subject come alive. Link it to the national curriculum or specific things in the museum. Give a badge to participants when they finish.

Yes I used to love museums.

I now visit less often as in many cases the actual quality and quantity of the exhibits has decreased as they are made "more accessible" which usually means dumbed down.

We always went to museums. Everywhere we have been. DD1 still keen at 30. DD2 less so but likes what she’s interested in. DD1 likes art galleries and anything with art in it!

I love a museum and so do my dds.

They always quite liked a trail or activity. The arts and crafts activities were good but often very busy and overwhelming for us as dds would both need help and often I was on my own with them so found it quite stressful.

I like it when there's people in costume telling stories and interacting. Portsmouth dockyard was great for that. They also had costumes to try on and activities like climbing the rigging or rowing the boats. We had annual passes for around 3 years for there and visted often.

I think interactive bits really help history come to life and can spark interest. Me and DH went to the Winston Churchill war rooms and I was blown away. I'm not overly interested in WW2 but it really made me want to know more. Walking through you could really feel what it must have been like during the war. We spent so long in there reading and looking at everything . I want to go back again with dds now my youngest is learning about ww2 at school.

I love to go to museums and galleries. My DC are adults now but they have always loved to do this too. One works in the art world and has a lot of access to exhibitions which is fab.

Regularise visitor to museums and galleries. Esp enjoyed the science museum in Birmingham.

Try to keep an eye out for special exhibitions. I just like the buildings the atmosphere and learning.

Worst museum experience ever: standing in the brand new Wonderlab wondering why it looks so much like the Launchpad but you have to pay now and queue up for the slides. Slowly realising that the bits of Launchpad they didn't put back all related to renewable energy in some way. Sponsored by an oil company. I haven't been for a few years do don't know if it's any better now.

Nope, still shit and the queue for the slides is ridiculous. but the toddler playground in the basement is great (and free). Basically a big water play area and a climbing frame.

For people who don’t live in London, I’d recommend a trip to Winchester Science Centre over a special trip to the Science Museum. Basically two floors of the Launchpad, with live demonstrations and far fewer crowds. No rockets, planes or lunar modules, but much better for primary-aged kids.

You’ve got to love dressing up.

Re-enactment at Caerleon Ampitheatre and I like the Roman Bath museum, it’s easy to imagine it in use

we love the big national museums and smaller local ones.

Big Pit Mining Museum Blaenavon, part of National Museum of Wales, especially for some reason, the biographies of the miners that used to be on the locker doors “Stephen Jones, poet..” and the exhibition about the miners’ wives and how hard their lives were.

Kelham Island Industrial museum in Sheffield and world’s most powerful engine working. It was like Mordor. Amazing.

womens football exhibition in Brighton museum and art gallery

Yorkshire Sculpture park

Tate Liverpool

St Fagan’s museum of Welsh life. Fab at any age. We love the row of cottages through the ages

Impressionist art exhibition at Cardiff Museum

Mappa Mundi in Hereford Cathedral

V&A

Anywhere really. What’s not to like on a wet day.

stuff the kids liked when small - worksheets, colouring, dressing up, handling exhibits (fossils, bones), looking down microscopes. New exhibitions but also some old favourites to go back and be a bit braver than last time (dinosaurs, mammoths) and to know a bit more about (insect classification).

I do, lots. I also travel to do so. My son (6) get emails from the natural history museum and if Dino stuff is happening, I get tortured. We live in Scotland, otherwise I would take him there probably monthly at the least.

We do museums and galleries everywhere we go. Some members if the family will enjoy particular things more than others, but we discuss taking it in turns and try to make things fun for the less enthusiastic. DC really enjoy history though, even in the form of pots/statues etc, but if there are jewels, fossils, mummies/ pyramids, weapons or armour involved, no persuasion is necessary.