Play and Learn Every Day

Dinosaurs in the Wild - Review

16:41

We went to Dinosaurs in the Wild in Greenwich, London a couple of days ago and I am still amazed at how incredible it was, and I think it's something that the children will continue to talk about for a long time to come. It's the perfect family day out over the summer holidays and it's on until 2nd September in the Greenwich Peninsula.

It was such an amazing experience, Ethan has referred to it as the most thrilling day of his life! But because it is so unique I worry that I might give too much away in this review and spoil it for you! So I'll start with a brief overview, then give some spoilers later and tips later on.

The experience begins before you even reach the building! When we exited North Greenwich station we weren't sure exactly which way to go (as it is about a 10 minute walk) but we needn't have worried as there are dinosaur footprints and signs to lead you to your destination.

Then once you enter and show your tickets, you can go straight over and have a green screen photo taken (which will later have a t-rex behind you) which of course we highly recommend, any chance for a photo opp! We also recommend that you go to the loo at this point, as there are no washrooms available during your journey through time.

At the beginning you go through a series of waiting areas to the departure lounge, where you are briefed about the journey and given your safety glasses. It is all very serious right from the start, and you are immersed in the experience as soon as you set foot into the departure lounge. They have thought of every single detail throughout, giving you lots of information to read on the walls about the history of Chronotex and how they developed the time travel system.

We got ready to board our time travel device, again being reminded to keep our safety glasses on and to follow all instructions. They don't allow flash photography throughout the experience and the low lighting really adds to the whole ambience, but unfortunately it means that my photos and videos really don't do it justice, it is something that you need to experience for yourself.

We entered the time machine and found our seats, the journey through time does not take very long, and we were soon able to open the shutters and get our first glimpse of the dinosaurs (you can see a clip of this in our video further down.)

Our vehicle then drove to Time Base 67, where we were briefed on all of the different areas of the base that we would be visiting.

Again I was amazed at every little detail that they thought of, there were too many things in each room to even look at. I am sure that every person who visits notices little things that others don't. I quite liked these monitor panels which display the current time and date, all part of the experience.

First we visited a specimen room which we were free to walk around and see a variety of different samples from the dinosaurs. This T-rex claw was particularly fascinating to the children.

I really liked how many facts there were to be found around the room. You can tell that all of the information here has been well researched and a dinosaur fan could definitely learn a lot from all of the little signs around the room. Our guide was also very knowledgeable and told us about many of the items in the room, and also answered any questions that we had.

And of course who could pass up the opportunity to get a good feel around some Tyrannosaurus dung!

Next we moved onto a room where we could witness a dinosaur autopsy take place. Again there was a lot to learn here and everyone was completely fascinated (but I won't give too much away).

We moved on next to the hatching room. This was Ivy's favourite room by far, there were a few different incubators that we could look at filled with a variety of dinosaur eggs and another expert to talk us through it all.

We even got to see a newly hatched Dakotaraptor, whom they decided to name after one of the children there; meet Ivyraptor! (You can see a bit of this in the video clip as well.)

Onto the nocturnal room, where we could watch a few of the dinosaurs while they slept during the day.

And then onto a few dinosaurs who were recovering from illness, we really liked this triceratops!

And finally we took the life to the lookout, where there were four large windows with the shutters down, with information tables in front of them.

When the shutters opened we were once again witness to all sorts of interesting goings on outside of the time base with all of the dinosaurs.

Spoiler alert! This is where things started to get intense with what we were seeing outside these windows. A few different incidents occurred with the dinosaurs outside and our vehicle was no longer available to take us back to 2018. So we had an emergency evacuation, which did cause some concern for the younger children. In the end of course we made it safely back to the present (well, 2019, but who's counting right?) and I wasn't sure how the children would react, but that's when Ethan said that it was the most thrilling day ever and that he absolutely loved it. And even though Ivy is below the recommended age range (they say from 5 but she is only 4) she seemed completely unfazed by it once it was all finished.

Here's a little video of our experience, including a clip of the time travel journey and when they named a baby Dakotaraptor after Ivy!

Our tips for attending Dinosaurs in the Wild:

make sure that you eat beforehand as there are no stops during the journey (there is a small cafe stand in the entrance / exit though)
make sure that you go to the toilet before you begin as there are none during the experience
consider bringing a baby carrier if you're bringing a little one as you can't bring pushchairs / strollers through (but they can be left at the entrance)
make sure that you only bring children that can handle the intensity of the experience, I mistakenly thought that I would be able to bring Ivy out if it was too much for her, and am not sure now how that could have happened (but luckily she handled it well, so also don't underestimate a four year old!)

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* This is a review post, we were given tickets to attend Dinosaurs in the Wild in order to write this post, all opinions are our own.*

4 years old

The Making of Harry Potter - The Goblet of Fire

15:03

6 years old

Flying Bird Craft

10:43

We've been busy making a bird craft that can fly (well sort of!) It's another one of our after school crafting creations, and Ethan absolutely loves these challenges. I set up a collection of materials on the table for him, and then he just gets to put them together in any way that he likes to make a bird.

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Materials you'll need to make a Flying Bird Craft:

clothes peg
string
assorted paper
Bostik White Glu
lolly sticks
googly eyes
feathers
Blu Tack Micro Dots

I set things up with a string that I tied from a door handle to the back of a chair and showed Ethan how we could slide a clothes peg along the string to make it fly across (a bit like a zip line) so that he could make a bird and attach it to the clothes peg to make it fly along the string.

First we wanted to make our clothes peg look a bit more like a bird's wing, so we used some white glue to stick a feather on each side of it and then left it to dry.

That was the only input that I had, then I just left Ethan to create on his own. He used all of the materials to make a massive bird with a paper plate body decorated with a doily and feathers. The bird's head is made from crepe paper, foam shapes and googly eyes. The legs are made from lolly sticks and bits of paper that he stuck on using the micro dots. He really enjoyed playing with these as they sort of make any bit of paper into a sticker, I think that they'll be a bit part of his crafting creations now.

I was a little bit concerned that his first bird was a bit too big to fly on our zip line, so he made a smaller one as well, just in case. This bird he made by cutting up some foam sheets into a bird shape, with a foam wing and lolly sticks for legs. Both birds did actually fly quite nicely along the string and Ethan is having a lot of fun playing with them!

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* This is a review post, we were sent a box of craft supplies from Bostik in order to make this craft, all opinions are our own.*

4 years old

Nurturing Children's Minds

17:01

Wow, I've had one of those 'a-ha' moments today and I am just exploding with this information and need to share it. I went to a workshop at the kids' school this morning about Growing Healthy Minds and it just made me realise how important it is to work on helping them to manage their big emotions now, so that they have all of these tools that they can use throughout their lives to help them to succeed. Here's a few things that they covered and some ways that we already use them or that we're planning on using them in the future. (Don't worry if meditation and yoga aren't for you, keep reading because Growth Mindset might really be the thing that clicks!)

Photo by Wayne Robinson on Unsplash

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Meditation, Mindfulness and Guided Visualisations

They had these lovely Tibetan bells that they used to help the children to focus on their breathing. To listen to the bells and when they stop hearing the sound then they take deep breaths and pay attention to their bodies, bringing their minds back to their breathing if their minds wandered. It's great for calming down after a busy time, like play time. Children need some down time to calm their minds from the frenzy around them, just like we do.

We also did a guided visualisation from the book Relax Kids - Pants of Peace. We did the Bags of Kindness visualisation and I could really see how it would be helpful for children. When I was a teacher I had a few CDs with guided visualisations that I would put on for the class, I really liked the Relax Kids Fantastic Fairytales Meditation CD and the Calm for Kids Enchanted Meditations for Kids CD.

Yoga

I was happy to hear that they recommended doing some Cosmic Kids on YouTube as we are already big fans. We were lucky enough to go to take part in a Cosmic Kids Live session a couple of years ago, you may just be able to spot Ethan in this video.

We also love doing a bit of our own yoga at home using books, yoga cards and having a yoga poster up in the kids' bedrooms. I did a course with Calm for Kids when I was a teacher and loved using these Yoga Pretzels cards, the book Yoga Kids by Fearne Cotton and this great ABCs of Yoga poster which I now use at home as well.

Calming Techniques

The teacher this morning used a calm down jar to demonstrate how the brain gets flooded with emotions and can’t function, so needs to calm. It reminded me that we haven't actually made any calm down jars or sensory bottles in ages and they are such a good resource for children to focus on when they are feeling overwhelmed. (Our very first sensory bottles when Ethan was a baby were quite simple, but I then experimented with some slow moving calm down bottles for Easter a few years later.)

They also recommended the Calm Kids book which is full of calming ideas for children. As well as a meditation candle video like this one from Cosmic Kids:

Growth Mindset

Growth Mindset is the concept that blew my mind a little bit this morning, as it just makes so much sense and I have no idea how I had never heard of it before. It was developed by Dr Carol Dweck and is basically all about how we cope with challenges. If we have a growth mindset and enjoy the challenge and learn from it, or if we have a fixed mindset and challenges intimidate us because we think we can't do it. We watched this introduction video which made it really clear:

It's all about praising the process and effort (not talent or intelligence), not worrying about making mistakes because the brain is a muscle and making mistakes makes it stronger. It's also remembering to use the word yet 'I’m not very good at _____ yet!'

This couldn't have come at a better time for us as I have been talking to Ethan a lot about this recently. He is a bit of a perfectionist and always likes to get things right, getting discouraged when he makes mistakes. I've been emphasising the importance of working hard and not giving up, but I'm hopeful that the Growth Mindset principles will help me to really encourage him further.

There are also some great videos aimed at children from Class Dojo that make it more accessible at their level.

I have just ordered the Growth Mindset book by Dr Carol Dweck to learn more about it and bring it more into the activities that we do at home.

It also reminded me of a TED video that I once saw about grit, which I managed to find again (and it also inspired me to order the book by the speaker, Grit by Angela Duckworth.)

The Learning Pit

Another concept that they covered this morning was The Learning Pit developed by James Nottingham (he has a book called The Learning Challenge) . It emphasises that the hardest part is taking that first jump off the cliff into the pit, things will get difficult and you may hit a brick wall but once you push through it you get that eureka moment and succeed. We watched this video which really showed the importance of not giving up and being resilient:

Positivity

Finally we ended on a positive note, and they mentioned something that we are actually doing already (I thought that I had invented it!) Each night at bedtime I ask the children to to tell me three happy things about their days. This way we end on a positive thought, I get to hear more about the fun that they're having and it has helped with sleep issues as well (less anxious thoughts keeping them awake or causing bad dreams.)

Our mornings are always very hectic and busy (brush your teeth! put on your shoes!) but we do try to start the days with some positivity too. Often while we're putting on our coats and shoes and just getting ready to leave I'll play the song Get Back Up Again from the Trolls Soundtrack to give us a little boost and start thinking about how strong we are and that we can get through anything today. It's our special morning song and it always puts everyone in a good mood!

I am feeling really inspired from all of this today and hoping to put it all into action with our family straight away. Please let me know if you do any of this already in your families and how it has impacted your lives.

Further Resources: