Ok 9am on a Sunday morning does not normally see me outside of my house let alone out of my bed but Sunday just gone saw us up bright and early and off to the Imperial War Museum North to meet up with some other lovely bloggers and take a look around the new exhibit.
We had a great exclusive look around the exhibit before the museum opened to the public and I was really impressed. A war museum would not be somewhere I would normally think to take my girls as they are still a bit young but they had so much fun.
The Once upon a wartime exhibit is based around five books and as you go through the exhibit you walk through each book in turn.
To begin with was The War House by Michael Morpurgo the girls loved the horses, both the painting and the wooden horse and the props from Steven Spielbergs adaptation kept hubby happy.
Next up was Carrie’s war by Nina Bawden, I read this when I was at school and the girls loved the train and the table with a teaset they were able to play with. The amount of detail that has gone into the exhibit is amazing and making it child friendly means that it is fun for all the family.
The Machine Gunners by Robert Westall was another book I read when I was a child and the girls loved this exhibit more than any of the others. With the aeroplanes hanging from the ceiling casting shadows on the ground and binoculars for the children to look through as well as the bomb shelter (fortress) with a tunnel to crawl through we spent quite a while looking around here.
The girls bypassed The Silver Sword by Ian Serailler as there was another group looking at that part of the exhibit and being young they didnt want to wait or share.
The little soldier by Bernard Ashley is a more modern story, the girls loved this exhibit as it had touch screen monitors and lots of things for them to play with.
We headed downstairs to the activity room which is just amazing, with an area for babies as well as the craft tables.
