Go on...spring into action (From Advertiser Series)

Go on...spring into action

8:01am Monday 18th May 2009

• Print
• Email
• Share

Bank holidays are a bit like buses – you wait ages for one, and then two come along together.

Unfortunately, it’s a long wait until the next one in August – holiday that is – so make the most of the Spring Bank Holiday break and get out there and enjoy all that’s on offer.

Mention the word ‘museum’ to most children and they’ll throw up their hands in horror muttering the word ‘boring’. Well it’s easy to prove them wrong, because we are surrounded by museums full of interactive and exciting displays.

Start the half-term with a spring in your step and keep the kids entertained with the array of treats on offer at the National Media Museum in Bradford. Let your imagination run wild as exhibits come to life in the new film, Night At The Museum 2, which begins its run on Wednesday. Solve ancient adventures with Mummies 3D: Secrets Of The Pharaohs, or take a dive underwater with Deep Sea 3D – all showing on the IMAX screen.

To celebrate half-term and National Family Week (May 25-31), you can take your toys and make them come to life with the stop-motion technique workshops. Plan, present, film and edit your own advert to take home, or be inspired by the new exhibition about animals, create animal models, puppets and your very own tarantula to take home.

Visitors can then see how museum bursts into life with the interactive Experience TV gallery and the Magic Factory. See yourself reading the news at the interactive newsdesk, star in your own film by spending some playtime with the Teletubbies, or get up close and personal to the dinosaurs on the museum’s blue-screen virtual studio.

If that whets your appetite for more adventure, the museum is inviting visitors to go behind the scenes on one of the free daily Insight tours.

Eden Camp, near Malton, was originally a Second World War prisoner-of-war camp. Now the huts house displays that tell the story of many aspects of the war, including the rise of Hitler, the Women’s Land Army and the Home Guard. There’s also some military kit for the boys to admire.

It’s sort of a theme park-meets-museum, with a remarkably wide range of exhibits including life on the home front; the Blitz; U-boats; the life of a POW; Bomber Command; German secret weapons and women at war.

For something completely different, you can grab your Stetson and mosey on down to the Royal Armouries, Leeds, for some rootin’ tootin’ fun at the Wild West Weekend. There are plenty of activities for all the family with gunslingers, themed horse shows and some of the most famous characters from the Wild West.

You can journey back in time even further, to the 15th century and the War of the Roses, when the Red Wyvern Re-enactment Society sets up a medieval campsite in the grounds of Skipton Castle, with demonstrations of arms and armour.

Think your children have what it takes to be an astronaut? If you do then Space Academy at Eureka!, the National Children’s Museum in Halifax, would like to hear about it because they are looking for some young cadets to join its team of cosmic crusaders from next Saturday to May 31.

Aspiring astronauts will be taken through a series of suitability tests including the opportunity to ride on a ‘Spaceball’ to see how they cope with weightlessness in space.

All members of the family, no matter what their age, will be in their element at Magna, the UK’s first Science Adventure Centre, set in the gigantic Templeborough steelworks, near Rotherham.

This half-term they will be hosting activities and workshops daily to keep all the family entertained.

Kitchen Sink Shows open up a world of slimy, messy fun, by using everyday ingredients from your own kitchens.

Hot Air Balloon Workshops will give you a chance to make and test your own balloon, and Aqua-Tek –the wet outdoor play area – will be open along with Sci-Tek.

Set in the lovely parkland and grounds of Ripley Castle, near Harrogate, the 23rd Yorkshire Classic Car and Motorcycle Show on bank holiday Monday is a wonderful day of motoring nostalgia, which sees nearly 500 classic cars, motorbikes and 4x4s displayed by individual enthusiasts and many car clubs.

You’ll see wonderfully-restored cars, motorbikes, trade stands, and the ever-popular auto jumble.

Factfile

Skipton Castle – War of the Roses. May 23 to 25. Open 10am to 6pm, noon to 6pm on Sunday. Admission: adults £6, concessions £5.40, children £3.50.

Yorkshire Classic Car and Motorcyle Show, Ripley Castle. Bank holiday Monday, May 25. Open 10am to 4pm. Admission: adults £6, children £2.50.

Magna, Sheffield Road, Templeborough, Rotherham. Open 10am to 5pm daily. Workshops daily from Monday to Friday at £1 per visitor. Book your places on arrival. Admission: adults £8.95, concessions £8.05, children £7.15. You can book on line at visitmagna.co.uk.

Eureka! The National Children’s Museum, Discovery Road, Halifax. Open 10am to 5pm. Admission: adults £7.25, children age three-plus £7.25, toddlers age one-two £2.25.

Royal Armouries, Leeds: The Wild West Weekend, May 23 to May 31. Admission free.

Eden Camp, Malton. Open 10am to 5pm. Admission: adults £5, concessions/children £4.

• Print
• Email
• Share