Winter 2010 - Shipshape Magazine Bristol

feature
feature
Far left: At-Bristol’s
cavernous Flight Zone.
This pic: Morph proves
a crowd pleaser
Miniature
marvels
Jason Ewing took his son to At-Bristol’s Toddler
Takeover… but, he asks, is it better than chucking him in
the Learn and Groove and putting the football on?
Any new parent has the same set of anxieties: your
baby’s health, sleeping through, eating like a horse
and so on… and just as important is making sure
that you’re doing enough so they don’t get bored.
So At-Bristol’s latest innovation – the Toddler
Takeover day – was welcomed with open arms in
our household, even if our little fella wasn’t quite
old enough to partake in all that was on offer.
Spread over two floors, there are enough knobs
to twiddle, water to splash and shiny bits to whack
to ensure even the most demanding tyke puts
down his Nintendo DS for a couple of hours. We
arrived (late – nappy logistics) at around noon
and things were already in full swing with the
buggy parking areas full-to-bursting and each
of the exhibitions well thumbed, gummed and
drooled over. We ventured into the aircraft
hangar-like main exhibition area, where Dexter
bared his teeth (two, bottom row, just visible)
to an over-zealous mum
hogging the ‘build a body
with plastic bits’ installation.
Mission accomplished – she
took the hint and threw
in the towel – we took in
a whistle-stop tour of the
Archimedes’ screw (splash,
smile), model lock gates
(wide-eyed wonder) and
some shiny things to hit with
a hammer (the undisputed champion).
Out in the Flight Zone, Dexter was happy
to roll around with stuffed dinosaurs and perch
triumphantly on the full-size aeroplane wheel
while the older children launched flying objects,
burned off some calories (and shifted buckets of
Hands-on fun
for the family.
The next Toddler Takeover
days take place on 14
January (with a theme of
Crazy Creatures), 25 March
(Super Senses) and 6 May
(Wonderful Weather). They run
from 10am-4pm. Admission
(including Gift Aid) is £6.90
for adults and £5.90 for 3-
to 4-year-olds. Members and
under-3s go free.
water) in the huge treadmill and
mucked about in the sandpit.
The afternoon brought more
fun for tiny scientists as they
learnt how to paint butterflies,
helped birds catch bugs, made
giant rainbows and sifted through
autumn leaves. While most of this may have
been lost on Dexter (who was content watching
Morph doing cartwheels in the praxinoscope),
we saw plenty of families settling in for the day,
safe in the knowledge that tears and tantrums
were off the menu… for now.
At-Bristol prides itself on its hand-on
approach to learning, and while Dexter
might not have been quite up to some of the
lessons on offer, we know there are plenty
of educational (and fun) afternoons out just
waiting for us in this cavernous kids’ paradise.
And even if we weren’t oblivious to Dexter
filling his undergarments after only 10 minutes of
arriving, as another brightly coloured plastic body
part was thrown around the room, he was.
s
More: at-bristol.org.uk
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