Bristol Aquarium and the biggest fish I’ve ever seen!

Bristol Aquarium

Our visit to the aquarium was amazing, but still painfully expensive even with our new Kids Pass discount. See some info on that HERE. (Once I’d finished growling over the fees and charges that you now have to pay just to drive anywhere…) I’d actually been looking into the Home-Ed events that they offer…. and got sidetracked! We’d never been to Bristol Aquarium before, and we had a lot of fun looking at all the great creatures and plants that we hadn’t experienced elsewhere. Although I won’t lie, I was pretty gutted that there weren’t any turtles!

The sheer amount of truly HUGE specimens was really mind-blowing. Fish literally bigger than the 9-year-old! Some absolutely stunning jellyfish, and a surfeit of leopard-skinned Moray Eels.

Levers, mechanisms, history and mutilation.

When we were done with the Aquarium, (skirting swiftly past the gift shop…) We thought we’d make the most of the visit and have a look at some of the amazing ships we’d seen on the way in. On walking down along the dockside the girls pointed out the rails and started asking what they were for. As we wandered along we discussed the history of the port, the names of the buildings, the mechanisms that control the track switches, and saw an example of Steam power at work on the little tourist train that chugged past.

As we went down the trackway we saw a little maintenance pit between a section of rails and this got us talking about mechanics, hydraulic lifts and the dangers of relying on unnecessary technology. I related the story of a woman I knew who had been working as a mechanic when one of the lifts collapsed and paralyzed her. This naturally led to a discussion on vertebrae, spinal columns and nervous system function. This whole Science lesson was unplanned and completely tangental, but the comprehension and interested questioning that the girls showed told the depth with which the information was absorbed. Unlike ticking boxes on a worksheet in a classroom.

This in turn saw us again witnessing from the outside the way in which we naturally communicate with the kids, and always have done.