Activity Quest: Days out and crafts for kids

Adam is in Bloomsbury this week, at the Grant Museum of Zoology. It is part of University College London, it is one room, and that room is packed floor to ceiling with skeletons, jars and glass cases...
It is one of the few university zoology museums left in the country, which means the collection was put together to teach with rather than to show off, and it still feels like that. There is a famous jar of moles, which is exactly what it sounds like. There is a free audio tour with ten stops if you want the stories behind the specimens, and a shop selling 3D-printed bones.
Best of all, it is free to get in. It is open Tuesday to Saturday, one o'clock until five, and it is a couple of minutes' walk from Euston Square.
Find out more by searching for the Grant Museum of Zoology.
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Bex heads to the Postal Museum in Clerkenwell, and then underneath it. Mail Rail is a tiny railway built to carry post across London, running in tunnels below the streets since the 1920s, and you get to ride through the original tunnels on a train that runs on the same track...
Up above, the museum tells the story of the post itself, and there is Sorted!, an indoor play space for children aged one to eight. A ticket covers the Mail Rail ride and a full year of entry to the museum. It is open Tuesday to Sunday, 10am to 5pm, with the last ride down at 4pm.
PLUS: a trip to the Royal Observatory Greenwich to find out exactly what is going on during a partial solar eclipse.
Find out more by searching for the Postal Museum.
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Adam is in Notting Hill this week, at a museum made almost entirely of the things most people throw away. The Museum of Brands has kept the packaging: cereal boxes, sweet wrappers, toys, comics and adverts going back to the Victorians...
The heart of it is the Time Tunnel, a corridor that starts in the 1800s and walks you forward decade by decade, so you can watch the same products change shape as you go. Grown-ups tend to stop dead in front of whichever decade they grew up in, which is half the fun. There are family trails to pick up on the way round, a garden out the back and a cafe.
It is on Lancaster Road in Notting Hill, open Monday to Saturday from 10am to 5pm, and Sundays from 11am.
Find out more by searching for the Museum of Brands.
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Adam visits Oxford Castle and Prison to step back in time and explore the city's past.
There has been something standing on this spot for a thousand years, and a costumed guide walks you through the lot, from Viking raids and the Norman conquest to the beginnings of education in Oxford and the city's long history of crime and punishment. The buildings were still a working prison until 1996, so the cells are the real thing rather than a reconstruction... There is a climb up St George's Tower for a view out across the rooftops, and the castle mound next door is free to walk up whenever you like.
It is open every day from 10am to 5pm, with tours setting off every fifteen to thirty minutes. Under fives go free, although they are not allowed up the tower.
Find out more by searching for Oxford Castle and Prison.
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Adam is off to Forest Hill in south London for the Horniman Museum and Gardens, and the curious tale of a very overstuffed walrus...
The walrus arrived in London in Victorian times, and the story goes that the taxidermist who prepared it had never seen a live one, so he filled out every last wrinkle until it ended up smooth, round and enormous. It has been a south London favourite ever since. There is far more to the Horniman than the walrus though. The World Gallery is packed with objects from across the globe, there is a famous collection of musical instruments, an aquarium and a butterfly house, an Animal Walk that opens in the afternoons, and sixteen acres of gardens with a view right across London.
One thing to know before you go: the Natural History Gallery is closed while it is redeveloped, and the walrus is off display until it reopens, currently expected in early 2027. The museum and gardens are free to visit, and the aquarium and butterfly house are ticketed.
Find out more by searching for the Horniman Museum and Gardens.
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