1. Kate Lovegrove headed west to the Neasden temple

Ikea looms large on the North Circular, a temple to the modern culture of home improvement. But just across the road, (and if you look you can catch a sight of its ivory towers and fluttering flags as you thrust those Ikea items into your groaning boot), is the real thing – the BAPS Shri Swaminarayan Mandir, known more colloquially as the Neasden Temple. Opened in 1995, it is the largest Hindu Temple outside India, and is open to all, irrespective of race or creed.

My daughter and her friend had just finished ‘India Week’ at school (Key Stage 2, PSHE and RE) and this gave us all the incentive to go and explore the Temple. It is a brilliant half day trip. We started by admiring the intricate carvings on the outside walls of the ‘mandir’: peacocks, elephants and dancing figures make up friezes on the marble columns and arches. Domes reach up to the sky and fountains splash into marble pools. Adjacent to the mandir is a huge wooden prayer hall, carved from Burmese teak, and it is through this
hall that you enter into the internal complex of the temple.

Although everyone was very welcoming, this is a working temple, and we had to take our shoes off as soon as we entered. We were also politely told that no photographs should be taken and no mobile phones should be used. As we made our way towards the Inner
Sanctum of the temple to take part in a short service, I felt relieved that the youngest member of the party was seven and knew how to behave.

The religious heart of the mandir comprises a number of shrines of deities. My daughters were excited to see some Hindu gods that they recognised – Hanuman, the Monkey-faced god, Ganesh the Elephant-faced god, and Rama and Sita, the hero and heroine of the epic Indian tale, the Ramayana. The service was equally engaging. We sat cross legged on the floor in front of closed, carved doors. Above us the astonishing dome of the mandir soared upwards. People were requested not to talk, but the children needed no reminding.

They were, quite literally, dumbstruck. Music snaked through the pillars as monks in orange robes flung open the doors to reveal Bhagwan Swaminarayan and His choicest devotee, Gunatitanand Swami, in the central shrine and performed the arti ceremony by waving small candles. People were then blessed and we all filed past the deities to see them close up. The whole experience took no longer than fifteen minutes – perfect for an under ten year old.

Although this was undoubtedly the highlight of the visit, the temple also houses a very good permanent exhibition ‘Understanding Hinduism’ which includes a picture of child yogi, Swaminarayan (to whom the temple is dedicated), standing on one foot for three months in the mountains, meditating amidst snow storms and torturing weather. There is
also a fascinating (and short) video about how the Neasden temple was built, and interesting and accessible facts about how Hinduism has affected world culture.

A short stop at the souvenir shop and then we rounded off the visit with lunch at the café in the car park – a genuine Indian experience. The children ate samosas and other vegetarian snacks with gusto. Unlike the usual hideous Ikea experience, we all went home physically and mentally enriched and hardly out of pocket – the temple is free and the Hindu exhibition a mere £1.50. Now that’s what I call a bargain…

Go to www.mandir.org for info on opening times and services.

2. Marina Scott visited Berkshire’s living rainforest in search of reptiles

Jack was doing a project on rainforests. He had to choose a creature to write about. He chose the basilisk lizard. This is an interesting lizard because it whizzes across water so fast it looks as though it is walking on the surface and is consequently known as the Jesus Christ Lizard. Jack had seen a video of it doing its water-walking trick on the internet and thought it looked great. It doesn’t do much else. Its habitat is the Brazilian rainforest.

They don’t have any basilisks in London Zoo. It was a Saturday afternoon and the project was running out of steam. I did a google search of basilisk and UK and rainforest and found the Living Rainforest outside Reading: I rang up; they had one. An hour’s drive down the M4 (junction 13) and we arrived at an unprepossessing carpark with a big warehouse.

It wasn’t promising. Things started to look up as we passed a fantastic looking adventure playground. Somewhat reluctantly, the children went inside; through thick rubber doors and into a giant hothouse rainforest. The steam is overpowering. The sense of space unexpected. A walkway takes you through giant water lilies, tropical palms and ferns with pointers to cocoa, vanilla, ginger, coffee etc. There are butterflies, frogs, monkeys, even a
crocodile. It is a bit like walking through the tropical glass house at Kew but with water and animals. Unless you trek to Cornwall and the Eden project, there is nothing like this in England that I know of. But where is the pesky lizard? The trip is going to fail.

We ask a helpful member of staff. They go and find Lisa, the head keeper. She explains that the Jesus Christ lizard is hibernating. Jack is crestfallen and half heartedly asks some questions about how long it has been in captivity, whether she has ever seen it walk on water (she has), what its markings are like. She is a mine of information. As she is speaking I notice something on a drainpipe at the top of the building. I have seen a lot of pictures of this lizard. Lisa looks and confirms that Jesus Christ is out, catching some evening sunshine through the top of the glass. Jack is over the moon. He sits and sketches the reptile and I marvel at this small-scale but fantastic centre of education.

Living Rainforest, Hampstead Norreys,
Berks www.livingrainforest.org.
Tel 01635 202444, 10am–5pm
daily. Tickets: £7.95 adults,
£4.95-£5.95 children, under 3s free.

3. Emily Turner looked to the Science Museum and the Wellcome Collection to inspire her 9 year old in ks2 science

I am not a scientist. I scraped a C in Biology O level and that is it. I have survived 40 years without a sense of inadequacy. This summer, my son (aged 9)’s school report had a note at the bottom of the Science page: ‘Remember, copper is not magnetic’. How foolish!

Doesn’t know about the non-magnetic properties of copper! Paah! – All I know about copper is that I aspire to own a frying pan made of it. Action needed to be taken. So, post-school report, the copper-ignorant son and I went to Launchpad at the Science Museum.

We took his friend – Brilliant Joe – who is likely to become one of the greatest scientific minds of the 21st century. (He had a system for calculating the 24 hour clock when he was at nursery.) We had asked for someone to show us round; I was nervous (rightly) that
Brilliant Joe would know more than me. This is the ultimate gallery for imparting knowledge in a touchy-feely way. Never has learning been so interactive: thermal imaging – warm up your hands or rub ice on your nose and see what happens; pedal fast enough to turn on a TV with hydro-electricity; marvel as dry ice hits water and turns from a solid to a gas. It is a fantastic free resource. But, the difficulty with teaching abstract concepts is that it is hard to measure whether a child has ‘got’ it. If you are not a natural, there is a danger that the gimmicks become a distraction. Obviously, the cunning plan is that they will ‘get’ the concept while playing the game – but I am not convinced.

Brilliant Joe was enthralled turning on light bulbs by circuit building but Davy just liked making silly shapes. A different approach was called for. The Wellcome Collection is the Wellcome Trust’s permanent gallery space which opened last year. Medicine man Henry Wellcome’s gift to London is housed in an airy building on the Euston Road, which on a rainy Saturday afternoon was practically empty. There are two permanent galleries. We concentrated on Medicine Now which presents ideas about science and medicine since Wellcome died in 1936. Recommended as most suited to children of 14+, there is plenty to keep younger children interested – guided to an extent by the excellent free Young Explorer’s Pack. Each child received a canvas bag with activities and games. The gallery is divided into 5 topics: the body, genomes, malaria, obesity and the experience of medicine. Small but perfectly formed, it is the Serpentine to the Science Museum’s National Gallery.

And in many ways it feels more like an art gallery than a museum. On entry, you are confronted by a huge model of a hideously obese pile of naked flesh – recognisable as human at its feet, lost in a mass of formless blubber by the stomach. There is a map of the world where the country outlines are made entirely out of squashed malarial mosquitoes. Sit on a chair and you activate a recorded discussion about the ‘body’ by sculptor Anthony Gormley. Open a book (the size of a telephone directory), each page filled with small typed letter sequences and see that is only one of the 20 displayed that make up a single human genome. See Dolly the Sheep’s poo. There is some concession to touch and feel.

The kids loved the oversized human skeleton with internal organs that light up when you press them. But most of all it is a museum that encourages you to look and consider. There is a sense of quiet that the kids responded to. After we had looked round, they sat at
tables and picked up the postcards provided. One side has a list of 100 evocative words: dead, dream, wonder etc – the other side is blank for you to draw or write about your chosen word. There is a wall to put your completed card on. I had two deads, a dream and
a caterpillar (not on the list!) A total hit.

The Science Museum,
Exhibition Road, SW7

www.nmsi.ac.uk Tel 0870 870 4868.
Admission free. The Wellcome Collection, 183 Euston Road, NW1
www.wellcomecollection.org Tel 7611 2222. Admission free.

4. Carrie and Harry Symes spent a Sunday morning wallowing in the splendours of the magnificent Wallace collection

Majestically situated in a peaceful, leafy garden square close to the bustle of Oxford Street, is Hertford House. This imposing historic former family home of the Marquesses of Hertford and Sir Richard Wallace houses a magnificent collection of paintings, sculptures, porcelain, armour, furniture and gold boxes. Bequeathed to the nation in 1897, it opened as the Wallace Collection in 1900.

The staff were friendly and helpful and Harry (aged 9) and I were both advised to take the adult audio guide. This was excellent and came with a ‘highlights’ paper guide pointing out the most interesting and unusual artefacts. There is much to see from so many centuries, it pays to be a little discerning. Key Stage 2 History topics such as the Greeks, the Romans, the Tudors, are enmeshed with art and design.

There are magnifying glasses to borrow and family trails to follow. The European and Oriental armouries are among the most important collections of arms and armour in the world. Harry delightedly tried on a suit of replica armour and was amazed how heavy it was. We followed a dramatic Warrior Kings trail. Tigers and elephants adorned shields, swords and daggers. Eyes aflame with the sheer beauty (and amount of jewels!) of the sword of Ranjit Singh, an eighteenth century Sikh ruler, made of solid gold and ‘watered’ steel, and an exquisite dagger from the court of the Mughal Emperors, set with rubies, emeralds and diamonds, Harry was hooked. The deadly chakram, or quoit, appealed to the pugnacious warrior in my son. Sikhs were famous for the accurate throwing of this lethal circle of steel.

Displayed on the walls of the other rooms on the ground and first floor are an amazing collection of Old Masters, and as a selection of eighteenth century paintings. Harry was rather taken with the turquoise colour of the Sevres porcelain; particularly unusual and creepy were the elephant handles on several vases.

Most fascinating of all to Harry, however, were the clocks. Mantel clocks, free standing clocks, clocks atop wardrobes and chests of drawers, one was reminded how important clocks were in the eighteenth century by the gentle and sonorous chiming throughout our visit. One in particular caught his eye. This vast ornate uncompromising monument to time stood about ten feet tall and had a map and various dials by which you could tell the time anywhere in the Northern Hemisphere. Harry was astounded both to see that something we take for granted was a major scientific advancement in its day, and that a clock was the basis for a work of art.

The Wallace Collection, Hertford House, Manchester Square, W1
www.wallacecollection.org Tel 7563 9500. Admission free.