On Sunday nights I like to plan out my girls activities for the week. When I’m not sure what to do I usually review the summer bucket list I created in the spring. I decided this week I would take them on an over night trip to London, ON. They had two attractions I was really interested in going the London’s Children’s Museum and Storybook Gardens. My mother’s birthday was coming up this week so we thought we would make it a nice birthday adventure for her as well. So we packed out bags, and off we went. The drive is a little over 2 hours from Toronto, so i downloaded a few episodes of Gabby’s Dollhouse for the kids on their ipad just in case they started to get fussy.
About
London’s Children museum definitely did not disappoint, my kids learnt so much and they have been asking to go back. To be honest I didn’t do much research I just saw they had activities I thought would be good for both my girls. When I choose experiences for them I try to make sure they are both able to do majority of the activities together. This is mainly to prevent meltdowns, especially when the intent is to have a ton a fun.
The museum is located in a 3 story old elementary school. The museum has actually been around since 1977. Each floor has a different exibits and learning focus. There are 9 different exhibits and they are all interactive, making it easy for the kids to just wonder and explore. The focus there is open ended learning and play based learning experiences. This is not just limited to the rooms they have little activities and games in the hallways as you move throughout the museum.
Admission is fairly reasonable, anyone over the age of 2 is $9.50. We purchased the tickets at the door however, you can pre-purchase online. The kids get to choose a stamp for their hand for admission, which is a nice change from the wristbands. After that they give you a map so that you can see where all the exhibits, washrooms are. Tihana actually enjoyed holding the map and directing us as explorers. I loved how family focused and considerate they are. Outside food is permitted and you are allowed to eat in the auditorium which makes this place a game changer when it comes to an all day experience, especially on a rainy day. We arrived at 2:30 pm and the museum closed at 5 pm, which was enough time to see everything but we could’ve used more time because there is a lot of things to do.
What to do
I was not sure what to expect but once we walked into the first floor dinosaur exhibit, my girls went right to exploring. They became archeologist digging for dinosaur bones. Now I have them looking for dinosaur bones all throughout the house. They were honestly amazed at each section we went into. Even my mom had a good time. She was impressed with the back in time section and I was able to capture a really special moment of my mom showing them how things looked like when she was a kid. Even I was able to learn some stuff about what things were like for her as a child.
The kids favourite section hands-down was the “Sifton Street Where You Live.” I could barely get them out this section to explore the rest of the museum. It is a life size street with a banks, a two story play house, a grocery store plus more. We had fun playing at the grocery store, I was the teller and the girls were the shoppers who emptied the whole store. They even have little mini grocery carts. (so cute!) They also made me a hamburger and fries at McDonalds. What I loved about it, is watching them relate things back to what they see in real life. My girls fought over who was going to be the receptionist at the vet office because they both wanted to “work like their dad.” We did eventually get to exploring the rest of the museum but it was short-lived because they just really wanted to go back to the street.
The rest of the museum is still really something to explore, the space station is neat they have cameras set up and the kids are able to learn about outer space in the planetarium. They do offer a show and I’m not sure if they had a show the day we were there but we did go into the planetarium and learn about the different planets. We spent some time in the Artic Discovery making and coloring snowflakes, fishing and learning about the inuits.
The last teo exhibits I found them drawn to was the mechanical energy and the science room. I was able to explain to them how electricity is made and they had a lot of fun powering up the houses. In the science room they have a mini tree house with a slide. This room is nature focused so they loved planting the flowers however they just wanted to go back to the street so we spent the last half hour of out time there.
