NHM London

Caden has been experimenting with photography lately. His current style is taking pictures of people sticking their tongues out. Consequently, every time I come to upload photos I find a few unexpected and random tongue photos. 

Today we visited the NHM London. The boys were SO excited about going on the train. I was very happy as this was the first opportunity I'd had to use my family and friend's railcard. I am happy to report it was worth the buy. My return fare to London with the discount was £12.50 and Caden was £3.70 so our day trip to London cost me £16 plus a coffee and a bottle of water - £20 total! (Next time I will take more water, I don't like buying it at expensive London stations!)  I love the Kleen Kanteen ones and want to get their largest bottle this time around, the medium sized steel bottle I have is excellent. 

Caden learned about conductors today and rather proudly handed over his own ticket to the conductor for checking. He also did nearly all of his own putting the ticket in the machine at the tube barriers throughout our journey. He really loved the importance of getting his own card out and wanted to look after his own card, that was a step too far for me right now, but soon... maybe. :) 

We saw a huge 15 min. queue for the Cromwell St entrance so went to the 'other' entrance where we walked straight into the museum. We walked into the Volcanos and Earthquakes side. Caden was very disappointed as he had expected to walk right into the foyer with the enormous Diplodocus skeleton, it wasn't worth the 15 min. wait in the rain though. We really liked this map of the world showing the tectonic plates which are highlighted in blue. We also pressed the button that showed us where every active volcano in the world is and also where the earthquake hotspots are. We noticed that the earthquakes and volcanos mostly happened along the fault lines. 

There was a section on tube worms. I did a bit of microbiology last year so told them about the hot smokers and how some creatures live there in very hostile conditions as the water is so mineral rich. 

Caden really liked this model of the earth. It really exemplified what I had been trying to explain, about molten rock being under the earth's crust. It made understanding how mantle could force its way through the crust through a volcano as lava, a little bit easier. As he gets older these concepts will be more and more accessible to him and Miles. I can't wait, I love seeing the little 'lightbulb' of understanding suddenly happen for them. 

We ended up walking through the 'Earth's Treasures' section, about geology. I loved this section, I could have stayed for ages but the kids were all about feeling the rocks, climbing on what they could and racing through to 'get to the dinosaurs'. 

Caden wanted to know how the slate felt on his cheek. Smooth and cold by all accounts!

I don't think an explanation is necessary here.... sigh!

Some stunning crystals in amazing colours and fascinating structures....

The diamonds.... Caden chose his best one!

We found a beautiful ammonite on our way to the Dinosaur's section. We imagined its tentacles at the top left coming out horizontally. 

We had to walk through an exhibition on birds. They really liked the exhibits though we didn't spend a lot of time here. 

Ostrich feet! 

Miles liked this "it's a peacock!!" turkey! 

Our first skeleton of the day, a prehistoric ground sloth. 

An enormous collection of ichthyosaurs. 

Then we came upon the main foyer, to much excitement. The diplodocus skeleton... back and front! :) 

More dinosaurs. 

Suspended Stegosaur skeleton

Someone kindly took a pic of me and the boys together. Miles was in the sling, he wanted to and it was a lot easier with all the lunch and coats and everything else that needed to be carried. I don't relish the thought of chasing after my toddler in the busiest section of the museum with huge bags knocking everyone about. All good fun!

We found some excellent teeth and claws... they both loved feeling these. 

Then we went into the Human Biology section. I am doing a course with the OU in this subject at the moment so it was of interest to me, I thought I would chance the boys with it, I imagined they might hate it. 

This is a massive sculpture of a cell. Really detailed and pretty impressive. We looked at blood cells and saw a macrophage engulfing a foreign cell. Caden likes the idea that his immune cells engulf and destroy invaders! 

There was a whole section on reproduction. They liked the figures. Caden knows how babies are born (just not quite the fine details yet, though if he asks me directly i'll answer him properly) from a woman so seeing images of birth was a non-event for him. 

Miles looking at a huge baby in-utero. 

The 'birth' exhibition.

Miles loved the funky mirrors. 

We pressed the button and watched the signal in the neuron, represented by a red light, travel from the point of synapse through the axon to the next synapse. It was a great starting point for what came straight after. 

The next exhibits were about different sections of the brain and how they are responsible for different bodily functions. It's great that he knows the basics about this at this point in his life. I love that! 

Miles, sucking the nose of the giant head!

This was a great section, a brain with strings of lights joined to the various body parts responsible for senses.  They pressed the buttons to either, give the lolly to the tongue, stick the nail in the hand, ring the bell at the ear, put the flower to the nose or light the bulb near the eye and the lights would travel along the 'neurons' to the brain. A brilliant introduction into biological signalling! 

If Caden wasn't interested in reproduction and birth, then he made up for it in this section. I began explaining to him about puberty and why the children's and adult's bodies were different to each other but he  ran around to the back of the figures yelling 'Look Miles, bum bums!' to the amusement of the other visitor next to me. 

Mucking about with the telephones..

Looking inside interesting doors and exploring new shapes..

We estimated, with the red arrows, where the necklace would stretch out to, then we pulled it horizontal. Not a bad estimate!

This was hilarious. The section was actually about child development and the girl in pink dungarees is holding a plaque saying that at the age of 5 a child is unable to understand why they cannot jump on the head of their own shadow. I suggested Caden try to jump on the head of his own shadow whereupon he jumped loads of times exclaiming 'it keeps moving, I can't jump on it and chasing after it down the corridor!' really funny! 

Then we got to the Mammals section. We have visited this before but it is such a good area in the museum we will probably always visit it when we are there. 

Miles and Caden looking at all the different animals. What is really good is that the life sized Bull Elephant is placed next to the life sized Blue Whale. This really allows you to get an idea of the relative size of each animal. Caden pointed out that the tail of the whale alone was much bigger than him.

They both really had a fabulous and interesting day out today. It was worth the busy tube and with our railcard it was less than £20 for the entire trip, with drinks! We will definitely be doing this and visiting all the sections many, many times. It is one of those places that as they can understand more, the sections will become more and more meaningful over time. I'm looking forward to incorporating the displays into future work and projects we do together.