A Visit to The Potteries Museum and Art Gallery

Today, nature led us to think of something to do inside. It rained… again!

We went to our local museum, The Potteries Museum and Art Gallery, and spent a couple of hours exploring the exhibits. It is free to visit the museum and the exhibits are modern, interactive and appealing. We had lots of fun.

The first exhibition was all about the Anglo-Saxons. My nephew and I took the opportunity to dress up like Anglo-Saxons and sit on thrones. There were some fascinating displays including one about death which features a skeleton. They also had some pieces from The Staffordshire Hoard. Some of them are tiny and so detailed; there were magnifying glasses to examine them. Despite all of this amazing information, my little ones preferred to run up down the ramp. (EYFS: Physical Development!)

The children all enjoyed the next section – the Natural History exhibition. There is so much for little ones to do and explore in here, including more dressing up, jigsaws, puzzles and games, lots of animals and a den inside a tree to play in. There is a fox’s burrow and next to it, you can lift a flap to smell what a fox smells like. Louie loved this and kept returning to it. There is a great display of different rocks that the children can touch and feel the differences. It is not behind glass and is very accessible so that children can examine the rock types carefully. We spent ages in here exploring, looking and learning.

The next thing that the children enjoyed was the Spitfire. It’s amazing to be able to get so close to it and helped the children to appreciate the size of the aeroplane. Because we were able to get so close, it really caught their interest and generated lots of questions and discussion.

There is an area which shows what domestic life in Stoke on Trent would have been like. We were particularly intrigued by the kitchen and talked about the old cot and how clothes would be dried above the fire as there were no tumble dryers.

Downstairs is a totally child friendly area which is brilliant. There is dressing up, little dolls which can be used for a puppet show, colouring in, design a plate, a huge wall mosaic using little magnets, a little bridge to walk over… it’s like all of the areas of the Early Years Curriculum all in one place. I won’t worry about buying any resources when we can just visit here again! 

Opportunities for assessment:

PSED: Making Relationships

C&L: Speaking

C&L: Understanding

PD: Moving and Handling

PD: Health & Self-Care

L: Reading & Writing

UW: People & Communities

UW: The World

UW: Technology

EAD: Being Imaginative 

EAD: Exploring and Using Media and Materials