On Saturday I went along to the National Media Museum to check out some of the family events they have on this Easter holidays, I promised I would didn’t I? The National Media Museum provided complimentary tickets to their new Cinema Magic show (there you go that’s the disclosure bit out of the way).
Special Effects Makeup
We (me and my two kids) got there a bit early so we collected our tickets and gravitated towards the special effects make up workshop which was in the foyer. The workshop was led by two ladies who were great, very friendly and led the kids through how to do create gory looking wounds, step by step. My 6 year old came away with a very realistic looking gash to the back of her hand which she was extremely impressed with. I’ve had to show the photo of it to everyone we’ve met since Saturday. I haven’t added it here, it’s a bit gory …
Cinema Magic
We then went along to the Cinema Magic show which is showing throughout April. I wasn’t sure what the reaction would be as it seemed to be aimed at slightly older children but given the enthusiastic chatter afterwards it went down a storm. The presentation was well programmed, they had the audience, standing, sitting and playing along to demonstrate some cinema techniques. All in all there was enough variety in it to keep even the littlest one interested and I was really impressed at how much work had obviously gone into it.
The Magic Factory
When at the Media Museum we always visit The Magic Factory on the fourth floor. It’s full of mirrors, light and magic tricks that the kids love. Given that the weather on Saturday was lovely the museum was actually very quiet, it’s usually heaving during the school holidays, so the kids got to play on their favourite things and discovered some new things on the fourth floor. Not an easy task given that we’ve been lots of times before. It’s worth heading to the museum out of holidays, there’s enough to do without all the events and The Magic Factory is one of the highlights that we always enjoy.
Families on Five
Once we’d spent forever on the fourth floor we went up to the fifth floor (called Families on Five) and found lots of groups decorating cardboard boxes, sounds odd but it was in fact a simple and lovely animation workshop. The kids had to create a four/five framed story (one per side of the box with one side open) which was then made into short animation by a clever guy who walked the kids through it frame by frame creating a short stop frame animation. They really enjoyed all the cutting and sticking as well as getting involved in creating their animation which they got to show to Dad when they got home as it was posted to Flickr.
We had a great day out and familiy activities are continuing throughout April so make sure you check out what’s on.