On Saturday just gone (6/4) we attended a very special event! We got to go to Baltic on Gateshead Quayside to experience their new family play exhibition "The City Is Where We're Going Next" By Simon and Tom Bloor before it was officially opened to the public on 8th April (Yesterday!)
Baltic is open seven days a week from 10am till 6pm and the best thing is its Free! When you have kids free things to do on a weekend or a school holiday are a must! Its even open on the Bank Holidays!
The information leaflet about the show informed us that the exhibition takes its title from an American landscape architect and urban playground designer M. Paul Friedberg's idea of enjoying the city. Through their art work the Bloor's encourage us to reconsider how we engage with the civic space and invite us to re imagine urban hostile places as sites of inspiration and possibility.
Both James and Freddie had an absolute ball! Freddie in particular was very taken with the giant balls and the traffic lights. He was also climbing on the brightly painted pallets and sliding down the other side! James loved climbing all over the pallets and both boys were totally thrilled with the two big dumper bags of rubber bricks! They sat for ages building towers and walls out of them!
Another big hit with James was the funny mirrors that were like the ones you get at fun fairs where you look really silly when you stand in them! The reclaimed road signs which were painted bright colours and had bits of coloured magnets on were another big hit especially with James!
We had an absolutely fantastic time visiting and we are already planning a return before the end of the school holidays!
"The City Is Where We're Going Next" is open seven days a week till 2nd June, Located on Level 4 of Baltic.
You can find Baltic on Social Media at @balticmill on Facebook, @balticgateshead on Instagram and @balticmill on Twitter!
Now that December is here we are fully in the countdown to Christmas! We have already done our Santa visit and now we have been to Winter Woodland at Baltic Centre for Contemporary Arts!
Winter Woodland is a fun craft and song session on Saturday and Sundays running for the rest of December!
We were booked in for the 10am opening session on December the first! Once we got into the centre we made our way up to level two via the glass lifts. James was absolutely loving the view up the river from the lift! Once we got up we were greeted by some elves who told us all about how they sort all the Christmas cards and make sure they get to where they are going!
We were then invited over to the craft area to start making some Christmas decorations based on woodland animals! Freddie at this point had got very upset and scared by the people dressed up as elves that daddy tried to calm him down while mummy did some crafting with James who was really enthusiastic! Eventually Freddie came and sat on my knee and calmed right down when he found a glue stick and some googly eyes and he had fun with them!
James had such a good time making a fox and a robin and even an erm alien! Mummy made a fox with a bit of help from Freddie!
Once we had finished crafting it was time for some hot chocolate and marshmallows while
we helped to write a 12 days of christmas woodland animals song! There was also a room to the side which had bubble lights and plastic ice blocks and fake snowballs in! James loved this snow room and him and Freddie had so much fun launching snowballs at Daddy!
Tickets which are priced at £13 for one adult and one child are still available for these sessions which are running on December 8th,9th,15th,16th,22nd and 23rd! Baltic have very kindly offered readers a 20% discount using the code WINTER20. Tickets can be purchased here
We had such a good time and would highly recommend this for other families as a way of getting into the Christmas spirit!
**We were gifted our ticket in exchange for this review. All words are our own and Images were supplied by Baltic**
