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?

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.

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!

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.

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!