On a chilly evening in March, myself, my seven year old son, twelve of his classmates and about 220 other children headed to the Natural History Museum. We were going for a sleepover which began once the museum was closed. Our group was checked in and we were shown to a sleeping place where the group would be together, we were very near Dippy the diplodocus in the great hall. We set up camp, we had a mat provided and had brought pillows and sleeping bags with us so it didn’t take too long to do. The kids we were with changed into their matching onsies, this proved to be a brilliant way of locating them as they were easy to spot!
My son was using his wheelchair, he can walk short distances but the information had said you would cover a lot of ground – and we did. The staff on arrival talked to myself and him about the activities to ascertain what he could and couldn’t do but were not condescending and did not make him feel isolated or different.
Three activities took place, the first was a hunt around the dino hall in the dark. The children were given torches and a sheet and worked in teams to find hidden letters and then had to unravel the letters and find the correct skeleton. Then outside they were given some information about the dinosaurs they had been searching for!
The next activity followed after a break and was t-shirt decorating with a bit of art and palaeontology thrown in, the t-shirts were then put away for when we left and the children could bring them home. Our last activity for the evening came round and this was in the theatre and was all about insects, death, and so on and the children loved it, and I learnt some things as well. Following this it was bedtime, we went and cleaned out teeth and bedded down, at around midnight all the lights were turned off and we all went to sleep…
… well we tried, but with all the nosies, giggling and children complaining they couldn’t sleep, the dinosaurs looking at us and the hard floor we tried to sleep, we did get some sleep but not much, by seven we were all up and dressed and packing up. We took all our bags back to the arrivals area and headed to breakfast, everyone had the same – raspberry and white chocolate muffin, banana, flapjack, orange juice and for the adult s tea and coffee! Then it was time for the animal man, he talked about a range of animals and had some . He was great with the children and they quickly warmed towards him.
I have to say it was fun despite the lack of sleep and if you get the opportunity to go the children will love it! You can stay and look around the museum if you want to after the sleep over and we spent about half an hour visiting a couple of the galleries before heading home. My son had a great time and retained a lot of the information he was given, a great experience if you get the chance.
