I was invited to join the Play Tuesday's Art session, a 50 minutes session that is repeated 4 times over the day. It is attended by a wide range of people from Nannies with their charges, Mum's, Aunties and Grannies, all willing to get stuck in.
The sessions are designed so that a wide age range can join in but it is essential that you get a bit messy and there were more than a few painty hands and pen covered faces by the end.
We drew creatures from under the sea, painted sea monsters with loads of scary eyes and views from a porthole. We also looked at what sinks and what floats and read stories about fish with beautiful scales!
As you know I am never one to shy away from an art project so here is my view from a porthole!
I also joined Pirate School with a Year 2 class, a female pirate no less told us all about becoming a Pirate. This included having a pirate name (mine was Sleepy Joe), repeating the pirate promise which mainly consisted of stealing treasure and not washing! We learned about pirates weapons, pirate ships, pirate flags and sharing treasure fairly. We learned that the food was rubbish, there was a big chance you would get caught and life was hard as a pirate!
I also joined one of the costumed interpreters from the Queen's House who played the part of a Tudor seafarer, who talked the children through a voyage on the Golden Hind to collect treasures for the queen and a more traditional schools session on the Cutty Sark where we pretended to be a cabin boy on board on a voyage to Australia to buy wool.
It is such a broad choice of sessions covering large topics and it's only the start the Royal Observatory covers a whole other part of the curriculum and the sessions are fun and very engaging, Many of the local London schools visit, although getting 28 7 year olds on the Tube is not for the faint hearted!
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