Leicester New Walk Museum and Art Gallery

Free .. but donations are welcomed!

Lillie - “dinosaurs don’t eat people do they daddy?”
Daddy - “no, they eat donuts”
Lillie - “but why?”
Daddy - “because they’ve got lots of teeth”
Ted - “LOOK DEEEEDAAAAAARRR” (points at ceiling tiles)

Perhaps ill-advisedly I let Lil and Ted watch “Night at the Museum” this weekend … ill-advised for two reasons. Firstly, that it’s clearly a little bit scary for a 3 year old with an already vivid imagination and secondly because it got some pretty bad reviews (we didn’t get all the way through it though, so I couldn’t possibly comment).

Anyway, what with dinosaur skeletons coming to life and giant egyptian fellows with big spears and so forth (not to mention Ben Stiller), Lil proclaimed “museums are scary Daddy … I don’t like it”. Having already been responsible for Lil’s year long abstinence from slides at the playground (I may once have pushed her down a rather steep one against her will on the premise that it would be character building), I knew I had to take action to avert a life long fear of museums, art galleries and anything else remotely cultural.

So off to the New Walk Museum and Art Gallery in Leicester we went. With several small but perfectly formed exhibitions, including Egyptians (Lillie - “these aren’t like my mummy are they”), Dinosaurs, Natural History and World Arts, it’s a great introduction to the world of museums and art for younger kids without being too overwhelming. We spent about two hours there, including a juice stop at the newly installed Costa, and you’re free to roam so we went back to Lil’s bestest bits (Wild Space and The Mighty Dinosaurs) before heading home.

With plenty of interaction for the kids (Ted liked the Wild Space tunnels best … to the point where I had to crawl in myself to retrieve him) and some interesting collections for the adults too, it’s a great afternoon out on a rainy day and a real bargain for the suggested donation of a few pounds.

Daddy.