Category:Children's Play Days

Dinosaurs Children's Play Day, Sunday 7th February 2016 [image info]

Christmas Play Day, December 2015 [image info]

Alice in Wonderland Play Day, November 2015 [image info]

Fairy Tales and Myths Children's Play Day, September 2015 [image info]

Children's Play Day, 16 August 2015 [image info]

Brighton Toy and Model Museum's Children's Play Days are usually organised for Sundays, when the Museum would normally be closed.

Play Days involve a range of activities, including creative and arts activities and the opportunity to play with safe plastic Meccano and an extensive collection of wooden model railway and road construction sets, while surrounded by inspirational toys and models guaranteed to fire young imaginations.

For some Play Days, the museum may also be able to arrange special guest storytellers and authors.

Background

The museum started holding Sunday Children's Play Days in 2013. The pilot event was held as part of Frank Hornby Week in May 2013, with the help of brand new chairs and tables and art and play materials paid for by the Hornby project's Heritage Lottery Fund grant. These included a satisfyingly extravagant quantity of Brio-compatible hardwood train and road sets and accessories, including stations, bridges, level crossings and some Thomas and Friends engines.

A "normal" Play Day

We usually set up the tubs of wooden road and rail pieces in Arch Two, with a road-based layout on a tabletop, and a rail-based layout on the floor near Puppet Corner, and over the course of the day this tends to spread out over the museum floorspace and children add to and change the layout configuration.

The art materials and activities (drawing, colouring-in and crafts) are normally set up on tables in Arch Four, with supervision and help provided by volunteers.

On top of these core activities, we also try to experiment with additional activities such as storytelling (via a theatre-shaped hatch in Puppet Corner), guided drawing games, making "jumping Jack" figures out of card, and so on. these tend to be a little different at each event, depending on who we have available on a given date.

Children get a day of traditional hands-on educational and play activities, surrounded by a visually intense backdrop of some of the greatest toys of the early Twentieth century, a time before before iPads and social media and computer games.

Parents are looked after with seating and cups of tea, and can relax and enjoy chatting amongst themselves or to staff, or exploring the museum, knowing that at the end of the day it's us that'll be doing all the tidying up!

Scheduling 2016

Sunday 7th February - Dinosaurs – owing to the level of interest when we announced this event, we've had to make this event "advance tickets only". EventBrite tickets site
Sunday 13th March - Dinosaurs – since the first Dinosaur-themed event was so oversubscribed, we're holding it again on the 13th March.