Chelsea Physic Garden, Body Worlds and Mr Gum and the dancing bear.

We visited Chelsea Physic Garden, a short walk from Sloane Square tube station. You enter by an assuming entrance - 4 acres surrounded by high brick walls. It is a remarkable garden originally created in 1673 by the Apothecaries in which to grow medicinal plants. It’s a living, breathing museum, complete with labels and educational messaging next to every ‘exhibit’. If you want to know where aspirin comes from, you can actually see and touch the plant right here. We just enjoyed wondering round. P did the children's trial which she liked!

 We then went for a wonder round Battersea Park...

 ...and a snack in the park.

 We the took the tube to Piccadilly where we went to Body Worlds, a new permanent museum taking the place of Ripley’s Believe it or Not. Body Worlds is a museum made up of real, plastinated people and is unlike any museum or exhibit you’ll have ever seen. preserved human bodies used in 200 exhibits across 6 galleries giving a thought provoking, educational insight into our reproductive, respiratory, cardiovascular and metabolic systems. All exhibits are fascinating and strangely beautiful! It is worth noting there is a cloakroom before you enter the museum as you are only allowed a small bag for your journey round. There is also lift access and stair access on each floor as well. You get an audio guide which tells you about the different exhibits. 

We then walked over the river to the National Theatre.

 We went to see Mr Gum and the Dancing Bear in which Andy Stanton has adapted his own crazy but kind children's book about the unlikely friendship between feisty nine-year-old Polly and the giant bear she rescues from a miserable life of humiliation, and peppers it with bouncy songs by Jim Fortune. From what I remember it seems quite faithful to the book with shouts of, "The truth is a lemon meringue." It is suitably bonkers and we loved it! 

Bake Off Lab box

As P enjoys science but being busy working/riding it is hard to find the time to have ideas and collect resources so a box which has everything in it to carry out experiments is really appealing. We tried a Curiosity Box. Each Curiosity Box is packed with hands-on activities and collectable lab kit to help children explore the world around them – and beyond. The topics are curriculum linked and are ideal for children between the ages of 6 and 11. Every experiment is individually wrapped and includes all instructions, guides, ingredients and tools needed to become a budding scientist. The information in each pack is well written and explained for both little and big minds to easily understand. The experiments are fun and intriguing and really make you think about the science behind it all.

We started with the Bake Off Lab box which contains 3 delicious activities.

The first one we tried was making honeycomb. We saw that by adding bicarbonate of soda, it breaks down with heat to release carbon dioxide gas. The gas causes the sugar and syrup mixture froth and bubble. The bubbles become trapped in the mixture and set there!

 P then made a showstopper -using marshamallows and rice krispies to make different structures (P made marshmallows). The powder contains maltodextrin which joins with the fats in melted chocolate to create a powder!  

 

 Finally, she made biscuits - plain, raisin and mystery (we added chocolate) to find out which one would be the best for dipping. Biscuits are basically starch held together by sugar. Dunking melts the sugar leading to a more intense sweetness but also leading to disintegration. At the same time, the starch grains swell which temporarily helps to hold the dissolving biscuit together. We found that chocolate ones were the worst (disintegrated the quickest) and the plain were the best!

 We really enjoyed it and have ordered another one.

They also have 3 sizes of boxes for children aged 7-11 on monthly subscription:

Pico (1 activity) from £6.95pm

Nano (2 activities) from £11.95pm

 Jumbo (3 activities) from £19.95pm

There is also a CuriosiTots Box for younger children aged 4-6.

New Scientist Live

We visited New Scientist Live at Excel London. It was super easy to get to - about an hour from Cambridge with parking being £20 all day. I held off buying tickets for a long time and was glad I did as I got 40%.

New Scientist Live is a four day fest of all things scientific; there are five different zones you can explore – cosmos, technology, engineering, earth and humans. Everything from a Mars rover prototype, robots and the Bloodhound to insects and glitter and jewellery & everything in between.  Except it isn't really. It was really all about technology.   Having said that we did have fun... I also spent a lot of time fighting with myself not to buy all the books and toys and products that were there that I was fascinated by – and only came home with a t shirt and some VR card games. 

We played computer games...

made slime...

checked if we fast we could run..

made kites...

flew kites....

held insects...

played super mario brothers...

checked out a VR drive in the bloodhound car...

 and I and the husband checked out some of the talks which were more scientific!  It was quite a fun day out and super easy to drive from Cambridge.

Lapworth Museum of Geology and Winterbourne Botanic Garden

On a visit to Birmingham, we stopped for a visit to the free museum, the Lapworth Museum of Geology. First we stopped to admire the bear (there is a trail around Birmingham this summer!).

The museum holds one of the UK’s most outstanding rock, fossil and mineral collections, including dinosaur footprints including those made by large herbivores, such as an Allosaurus' skull and a woolly mammoth skull.We spent about an hour and a half looking round. P enjoyed completing a free trail where she had to look for certain items in the museum.

 Then we walked to the Winterbourne Botanic Garden where we had a cup of tea and cake in their cafe before having a quick explore of the gardens before it closed. Whilst, perhaps not for toddlers, P and E loved the bridge and stepping stones around the pond. We were followed round by a very friendly cat!

Cambridge Science Festival First Saturday

Today we went to the Science Festival.

We started off engineering, making a large cardboard castle (almost impossible to get home on a bike!) with working lights! P enjoyed making the circuit and E designing the castle, even utilizing spare cardboard to add an extension.

Next we went to the Chemistry Department where we enjoyed learning about hydrogen batteries for cars, turning 2p coins gold and other exciting experiments.

Lastly, we went to the Biology departments for CHaOS. The girls enjoyed biology, chemistry and physics experiments.