Chinese New Year
- Chinese New Year falls anytime from late January to early February.
- Learn about Budda's challenge to the animals, recite a poem, enjoy the lantern festival and take part in a dragon dance through the streets.
- Workshop length: 1 hour
Find Out More
- The calendar is based on a twelve-year cycle and each year, is represented by an animal.
- Budda set a challenge for all the animals, in a form of a race, to decide the order of the animal calendar.
- The colour red plays a significant role during these celebrations as the children decorate their houses.
- Recite a poem to bring luck, health, wealth and happiness to your family for the coming year.
- Small red envelopes have lucky money placed in them and are given as presents to children, adults, friends and family to encourage a prosperous new year.
- Learn when you can and cannot clean your house to avoid sweeping away the wealth the gods have given you.
- There are certain rules that must be followed each day - try not to break anything as it will bring bad luck.
- By the fifth day dancing is allowed and this is when the lantern festival and other celebrations begin.
- Join us in a dragon dance through the streets.
Fairytales
- Our fairytale workshops include the re-telling of a selection of classic tales:
- The Three Little Pigs/The Elves and the Shoemakers.
- Cinderella
- Each workshop length: 1 hour
Find Out More
The Three Little Pigs and The Elves and the Shoemaker
- Join the pigs as each one builds their house of straw, sticks and bricks with the aid of the forest animals
- Become a big bad wolf and blow over the first 2 houses.
- Discover why the last house was so strong
- Visit the Shoemaker and his wife in their shop and discover why they have no money
- Become the customers who are reluctant to buy any shoes from them
- Enter the talented and busy Elves and find out how they help the shoemaker and his wife
- Learn how one good turn deserves another – pay it forward
Cinderella
- Meet all the characters from this classic tale.
- With the aid of a fairy godmother we enter the world of The Monarchy and enjoy a fabulous ball.
- Learn how patience and kindness can triumph over greed and avarice
Plundering Pirates
- Discover Pirate fact from fiction.
- Join all our pirates from years ago to modern day and visit the different lands they came from.
- Meet our enigmatic female pirates.
- Workshop length: 1 hour
Find Out More
- What is the difference between a Corsair Pirate, a Bucanneer, a Privateer or a Caribbean Pirate?
- Learn which pirates to fear and who to trust.
- Meet our enigmatic female pirates: Ann Bonny, Mary Read and Cheng Sao.
- Did pirates bury their treasure, were their treasure maps and did they have parrots?
History of Toys
- Explore the world of toys, through playing with them and discovering how the materials they were made with has changed over the years.
- Visit a Punch and Judy show on the sea front and play with different toys over the ages.
- Workshop length: 1 hour
Find Out More
- Where as most toys were made of wood or china, nowadays they are made of rubber or plastic, are durable and last a lot longer.
- Has the performance of a toy improved due to the new materials it is made with?
- When were the first toys made and played with.
- Try our wooden, leather and plastic balls.
- Find out which games were popular in Viking times and are again today.
- Visit and participate as an audience member with our Punch and Judy show on the seafront and experience the excitement the children showed during a performance.
- Children were not allowed to play with any toys on a Sunday during Victorian Times, apart from Noah's Ark as this was based on a religious story.
History of Flight
Titanic
- Join us on a journey that takes us from Icarus to modern day space and air travel.
- Take a balloon flight over Paris, meet intrepid female pilots and experience the Battle of Britain from the skies.
- Workshop length: 1 hour
- Join Violet Jessup, a surviving stewardess on board the Titanic, and the crew as they set sail for America.
- Learn what happened before, during and after the voyage.
- Find out how the class system worked back in 1912 and visit the cabins and dining rooms to experience what life was like on board.
- What lessons were learnt and how did they make sure it never happened again.
Find Out More
- Join the Montgolfier brothers in their first balloon flight over Paris.
- Meet intrepid female pilots - Amelia Earhart and Amy Johnson as they achieve and break records.
- Experience the battle of Britain as Spitfires and Messerschmitts fly across our skies.
- Test your accuracy with Barnes Wallis’s bouncing bomb in a plane
- Enter the space race to see who lands on the moon first.
- Name all the different types of flying machines
- Enjoy travelling on a package holiday to multiple destinations.
Find Out More
Violet Jessop was a Stewardess on The Titanic when it sank and through her account of life on board we learn what life was like for all the passengers.
During the workshop we experience the difference between being in third, second and first class. We visit the cabins they slept in, find out the types of food on offer and join in the entertainment provided on board the ship.
The students learn about all the mishaps before the voyage even started and, during its departure out of Southampton, onto the fateful collision with an iceberg.
Violet helps the passengers into lifeboats and waits for the ship ‘Carpathia’ to arrive to save them. The ship the Californian was only 5 miles away, so we learn why they didn’t come to the rescue earlier.
We also learn about the miraculous survival of one of the chefs after being in the freezing water for hours.
Improvements and measures were put in place, so there would never be another disaster like this again.