Children's Summer workshops

It's been really great that the Friends have been able to sponsor and support the fabulous children's workshops. I've called them summer workshops, but in fact they are  holiday workshops, with some during october half term and the Christmas holidays. It's been an absolute pleasure as well to help out at the workshops, and see children and their parents interacting and enjoying the activities. There's a flyer to let you know when the next workshops are being held, and full details are on the museum's website
I'm going to add photos taken at the gargoyle workshop; this was a fantastic event with parents and children often quite reluctant, initially, to really get stuck into the clay, and spending time instead reading the information sheet and discussing where they had seen gargoyles. Everyone did end up with their hands covered in clay, and really enjoyed the experience

I took a few photos of gargoyles made

they were the result of quite a lot of work

as you can see

with some more complicated than others

Yesterday's workshop involved making a model of a volcano, with plenty of opportunities for bright colours and flames coming out of the top. Mostly a cleaner activity, although there was glue available, and the combination of glue and tissue paper can be quite messy.
Here are just some of the resulting volcanoes:

 Some of the volcanoes were decorated as enthusiastically on the outside as on the inside

 with two halves of the inside being a bit different

 this one below had a large structure coming out of the top

This year people have been asked to fill in a feedback sheet, here are some of the lovely things people said about the workshops:

"Excellent again, very friendly and my boy really enjoyed it"

"Good fact sheet"

"We had a lovely time"

" Very pleased children loved it!"

" We had lots of fun and will be back"

"Very good, my three year old really enjoyed it"

"Staff were friendly and helpful"

"Excellent ideas which can also be used at home"

"Would definitely recommend to friends"

''Keep it up, kids loved it''

''Staff were extremely approachable, helpful and friendly, to both adults and children''

''We had a great time, we would really love to see Swindon based history such as the railways''. ''Thanks for a great day''

''This is the second one we have been to, local, value for money, had a lovely time. Will come again''

''Thank you for providing these educational but fun activities for the children during the holidays''. ''Much appreciated''

There are other activities available in the art gallery to encourage children to look out for certain things in the pictures, and then to draw their own picture. There's also a trail of 10 items to find around the museum. Details on the website.