On a rainy day, we went to the Maidstone museum for our first visit. The 3 year old is very much a dinosaur fan, whilst the 4 year old has a fascination with all things ‘olden days’. I have also recently learnt about the ‘Wheels of time’ initiative, so on arrival at the museum we registered and the children received their first badge, which features ‘Spike’ the dinosaur. The Wheels of Time programme lets you discover many of Kent's museums and heritage sites, all whilst collecting individual badges along the way.
The museum has a buggy park which was handy and we had most of the museum to ourselves, so that was nice and relaxing. As we wandered around looking at all the exhibits and talking about the items, we heard some roaring noises. When we got to the room with the staircase up to the dinosaurs, I had a challenging time convincing the children that it was not a real dinosaur, rather just a pretend one. Eventually we made our way up the stairs and got to see the dinosaur, the baby one hatching out the egg proved to be a good talking point, and the large dinosaur footprint proved to be fascinating. My 4 year old enjoyed the glass floor that showed an underground badgers set.
We also enjoyed the room that had all the smaller taxidermy animals,insects, butterflies, fish, beetles and birds eggs. There is a sensory area where the children could use brushes to look for fossils, along with some buttons that could be pushed and a recorded sound played, which we the had to guess what it was.
There is also a chill out relaxed area for children to read books about nature and animals, so we spent lots of time exploring this. There is a microscope set up, which various items on a viewing plate, including a daisy, wood and some stone, so we enjoyed looking at these under the microscope.
Sadly the café closed in April, so be prepared with your snacks or make alternate plans to visit other suitable nearby café facilities.
The museum entry is free. https://museum.maidstone.gov.uk/
For more information on the Wheels of Time heritage sites and the Roaming Rex map, visit: