60 Children and The Eden Project

I went with my daughter's reception class today (along with the schools other class too) to the Eden Project. We left after some minor problems were sorted out at the beginning of school and made our way with a coach full of hyperactive 4 year olds!

I have been to Eden on several occasions but never experienced the ice rink so I think I may have been slightly more excited than some of the children! We all got into our groups (Midge was partnered with her best friend and myself which was pretty fun) and we walked down to the ice rink. The rink isn't massive but a fair size and it was littered with ride on toys, walkers, sledges, footballs and so many other fun toys for the children to play with. They played music from popular children's shows but I don't think any of the children heard this with all the fun they were having!

We played on the ice for about an hour. I swear I had the best workout ever on that rink! I pulled so many children around the ice on sledges, one in particular wouldn't let me leave! Maybe I was a super sledge puller or something? I was hot instead of cold upon leaving which is just not the way it's supposed to work is it? I wasn't the only red faced parent there though! 

After all the ice fun we had half an hour for lunch which was a bit chaotic with so many children and constant toilet trips but overall it worked out really well. All the children ate nicely and got excited when they were told we were going to look around the biomes. 

We looked around the Tropical Biome first which is full of all the plants and trees of the rainforest. As it was pretty sunny today the Biome had reached about 30 degrees. Coats came off immediately and I was thoroughly hot and bothered by the time we got to the end! I hate feeling hot and sticky it's blooming awful. Luckily, I bought the girl's drinks with me so they weren't phased by the heat at all. We saw some birds, growing bananas, waterfalls and 'ginormous leaves!' as the children exclaimed.

Next, as a special treat because we had so much spare time before returning home, we looked around the Mediterranean Biome which was much cooler as you can imagine. The children loved the colours, the chilies and of course the wonderful sculptures this Biome holds. 

Sadly, or happily by this time because the children were pretty tired by this point, we made our way back to our coaches for our return trip. The children seemed to have some sort of last minute energy surge because they were pretty loud on the way home! I was poked and prodded by children sitting behind me, asked lots of questions when really I was ready to sleep in my seat! I was good though...I mean, I didn't tell them off when they poked me, I answered all their questions happily and even managed to not urge when the child (and thank goodness the only one!) was puking just across from me! 

It was such a lovely day and all the children were so well behaved. If you're ever able to help with your schools' trips, I'd really recommend joining in. The children can be hard work sometimes but I figured the teachers have this 5 days a week all day so surly I could manage a few hours with other people's children? I did alright too!

CupcakeMumma

Eden Project!

We were sent some vouchers by BuyaGift.com to review a day out at a garden with afternoon tea for two included. After looking at the site I was pleased to see The Eden Project was one of the choices. As we live in Cornwall I said 'sure thing' and was sent an e-voucher. This process is really easy with simple instructions. I simply logged online and registered my e-voucher so we were ready to go!

On Saturday we took the train to St.Austell and waited for the designated bus to The Eden Project. Midge had no idea where we were going so when we arrived and handed in our vouchers (really straight forward) seeing the 2 big biomes was quite a surprise for her! She thought they looked like space ships which is fair enough!

First, we went for a little walk around looking at all the fruits and vegetables the garden offers. There were cauliflowers, raspberries and strawberries, all the food items you can grow in your own back garden. Midge seemed to like the idea of growing some of her own food so I'm not thinking about building a small veggie box in the back garden. We don't have much space but every little helps right?

After this we went through the bakery where we saw people having a go at making their own food and it was really good to see the chefs preparing lunch. This is where you can pick up your free hot drink and slice of cake. Unfortunately we didn't know this and ended up going to the cafe on the way out. The staff were really friendly and allowed us to have a cake from there and swap the hot drinks for cold drinks anyway. Personally I don't think it should matter where you use the voucher for the food but maybe there's a reason?

The first Biome we visited was the Mediterranean Biome. This is a nice temperature with a small cafe inside. You can also get massages some days at the moment and there are story times held at least twice during the day. There were a variety of chilies growing in this Biome as well as sun flowers, Lilies and other cool plants and trees such as the 'Cork Tree' where the bark is used to make the the cork for our wine bottles!

Bark from the tree that is made into cork.

Some amazing sculptures are on display here

The sculptures there were pretty amazing and Midge wanted to take some of her own photos so here they are:

We visited the Tropical Biome next which i'll just say now is so, insanely hot. I didn't go around the whole Biome which is a shame but I explored a few parts with Midge before feeling really dizzy and desperately searching for the nearest exit!
We got to see the huge banana trees, try some really nice, refreshing drink (forgotten the name but it was very rich and coconuty!) There were some beautiful plants in the biome with such bright colours.

I don't fancy eating these!

Lots of ants busy at work!

This was the real winner of the day though. A large wooden cart full of wonderful spices that you can take out and smell. It was just really cool to smell all of these different spices and Midge was really keen to learn what they all were and where they came from. I also thought it all looked really arty and I wouldn't mind having a go at doing a few drawings.

Because we didn't do the whole of the Tropical Biome and because we had both children who are quite young and got bored of hanging around waiting for Mummy to photograph and read everything we didn't spend that long there. We spent a good couple of hours though and had a lot of fun.

I do recommend this day for pretty much anyone though. If you don't like heat you may want to give the Tropical Biome a miss, although you will also miss out on some really lovely plants and great carts displaying all the different foods from various countries. We all had a great time and slept very well that night!

CupcakeMumma

* I was sent a voucher for 2 people to gain entry and be provided with 2 hot drinks and a cake each at the bakery. Under 5's are free. As usual all writing and opinions are my own.