Days Out in England – Bones Exhibition at The Great North Museum

Yesterday we continued our trend of having a day away during the school holidays. During Christmas we ventured up to Edinburgh to enjoy the Christmas Market, so this time we headed south and went to Newcastle. Since our #littlediscoveries adventure last year we discovered some great new places including The Great North Museum that Little Miss really enjoyed and when I heard they had a new exhibition on I decided we should go during half term. I asked my mum if she wanted to come with my nephew as he’s really into bones and even wanted to be an archaeologist at one point! So we booked trains and exchanged some Tesco Club Card vouchers for Pizza Express vouchers (£10 worth of points for £40 worth of vouchers, bargain) and headed down.

The easiest way to get to The Great North Museum for us from Central Station was to catch the metro to Haymarket. It is walkable but for two 5 year olds, one who doesn’t walk anywhere it was pushing it at the start of the day. The museum is a couple of minutes from the station and is well sign posted. You can’t miss the building really!

Once inside we headed straight for the exhibition which was situated on the first floor, right at the back of the museum. There were plenty of signs for it so you can’t get lost. We wanted to see it first incase it turns out museums aren’t really my nephew’s thing. The exhibition hall was spacious so even though it was busy you could walk around with ease and see everything.

There was a fair amount of reading and fun facts which both Little Miss and my nephew struggled with as they’re only learning to read. My mum and I would have to try and read and identify what everything was before pointing it out, not that it was a bad thing as I learned a lot of new facts about bones that even at 28 I had no idea about! Kids 7 plus would probably have an absolute field day learning all the fun facts about the bones and skeletons. However there was a lot of interaction that Little Miss could do which kept her amused. There was even a chance to dress up however the costumes were just too big for her!

We spent about 45 minutes looking around the exhibit making sure we’d seen everything before heading out to explore the rest of the museum. The touch screens were a huge hit although my nephew was terrified of the Egypt room (despite it being his mum’s favourite at his age!) They were also a huge fan of the Dinosaur skeleton that is always on display at the museum.

The museum is free to get into but you can give a donation and it’s an excellent way to pass a morning if you’re looking for a way to amuse the kids. I’d say the Bones museum is perfect for kids age 7+ but that’s not saying Little Miss didn’t enjoy it! We always love our visits to The Great North Museum and even now we haven’t seen everything yet so will of course be back in the near future.

The Bones exhibit is running until the 14th May so if you’re stuck for something to do in the North East one weekend or during the Easter holidays I definitely recommend you check it out!