Day at the Museum

I recently took my eldest to the Natural History Museum (for the second time). She had an interest in dinosaurs a year ago, but it has grown stronger over the last year. However, the funny thing is that her fascination has rekindled the love of dinosaurs that I had when I was a child. I can't help but wondering if this is something that other parents have noticed when their kids start taking interest in something that they loved as children?

They have a great bit in the museum where you can look at and handle real fossils, bones, animal skins and shells, and the people help out by asking questions. They also don't provide the answers, so they just let the kids think about it, using their natural inquisitiveness to bring out good ways of thinking. Here, my daughter showed off her dinosaur knowledge of Stegosaurus (her favourite) and Spinosaurus.

We also saw a great show about oceans, the creatures that live in them, and how we have to look after our environment to ensure that animals survive. We also saw Sophie the Stegosaurus and had a good look around the dinosaur gallery, where again my daughter showed she had more knowledge about dinosaurs than some of the other kids there.

She was also thrilled to see Andy's clock from Andy's Dinosaur Adventures and Andy's Prehistoric Adventures (both Cbeebies programmes).

Anyway, all this dinosaur stuff has inspired a dinosaur poem:

In the morning I trapped a Velociraptor

While on my way to work

It caught its claws

In the closing doors

And the train driver went beserk

Later my tour bus was a Brachiosaurus

And I sat astride its neck

Standing tall

At the palace wall

We made the Queen a nervous wreck

I practiced judo kicks with Archeopteryx

In the local park

With feathers flapping

And sharp beak snapping

All the dogs began to bark

Then I foiled a con with Iguanadon

We came to an old man’s aid

The thief he paled

At the thumb spike wailed

And fell to the floor and prayed

I planted crops with Triceratops

When the farmer was unwell

He used his horns

To dig out the thorns

But his dung made an awful smell

I taught some phonics with a Baryonyx

At one of the local schools

But parents complained

That it hadn’t been trained

And must be against the rules

I rowed the Isis with some Coelophysis

Though they struggled with the oars

But as a team

They picked up steam

And we won the coxless fours