Hi.  There are many places for you to go to and see something fun with your mum and dad or brother or sister or Aunty Marge and Uncle Tom or Nanny or Grandad or someone else, to get out of the house and do something fun.  Monsters don’t like staying indoors, we’re too big anyway it’s a lot nicer to be able to stretch out and run around, don’t you think?

The Local Park

• Sometimes it’s nice to have a big day out and go on the train or in the car for an adventure, but other times you can have much more monster fun keeping it simple!
• For our last Monster Day Out my suggestion is that you should check out The Park near you – there’s bound to be one.  It might only be a bit of grass, or there might be woods.  Whatever it’s got, it needs YOU – so get out there and remind yourself what it looks like today!
• The great thing about Parks is that they don’t cost a penny to get in and all your mates can join you there so you can save your pocket money for other things.
• You can play football, or Frisbee or tag, or you can invent you own game.  If there are woods you could make a den or start a spooky secret club and make signals to each other using wood and stones.
• And because parks are near your house you can keep the game going for weeks if you like.  Now the only question is do you want a monster for a member? – sounds like fun to me Hee hee!!

Listen again The Park

Sea life centres

• I love fish – not just with chips either!  Hee hee!  There are dozens of Aquariums and Sea Life Centres across the UK and they’re great for seeing some jaw dropping giant fish as well as funny little tiddlers.
• One of the biggest is the Sea Life London Aquarium. It has a collection of water tanks showing around 400 species of fish. That’s a MONSTER collection!
• The aquarium includes three floors and 14 different zones (freshwater stream, Atlantic upper, rivers and ponds, Pacific upper, Indian Ocean, Atlantic lower, Ray pool, temperate waters, Pacific lower, coral reef, invertebrates, tropical freshwater, mangrove….. and rainforest, phew!  What a lot of water!).
• The Pacific tank contains Green sea turtles and various species of sharks such as Sand Tigers, Brown Sharks and Nurse Sharks.  But don’t worry – they’re behind really thick glass so they won’t want to eat you for lunch!
• The London Aquarium is on the South Bank of the Thames near the London Eye but even if you are not in London there is bound to be a Sea Life Centre near you – why not ask your mum and dad?

Listen again Sea Life Centres

The Tower of London

• Parts of The Tower of London, were built nearly thousand years ago – that’s MONSTROUSLY old!
• Over the centuries it has been a fortress, a royal palace, and a prison (especially for royal prisoners).  It has also been a place of execution and torture, an armoury, a treasury, a zoo, the Royal Mint where coins were made, a public records office, an observatory, and since 1303, the home of the Crown Jewels of the United Kingdom.  You can visit and see the jewels or if you like more gruesome things look at the dungeons.
• The tower is popular with ravens – they’re big black birds.  Legend has it that when the ravens leave the tower it will fall.  The legend is so important that ten ravens are specially kept by a Yeoman Warder, or Beefeater, who takes care of them so they want to stay.  The names of the current Ravens are Gwylum, Thor, Hugin, Munin, Branwen, Bran, Gundulf, Baldrick, Fleur and Colin.
• Do you think they ran out of fancy names when they got to poor old Colin?  Hee hee!
• Find out more about The Tower of London

Listen again Tower of London

Old Trafford!

Glory, glory, Man United
Glory, glory, Man United
Glory, glory, Man United
And the reds go marching on, on, on!

• Hee hee! Well if you know that song you might know where our Monster Day Out is today – that’s right – Old Trafford!
• Old Trafford is the name of the Manchester United football stadium.
• It’s nickname is ‘The Theatre of Dreams’, as the stadium has seen so many of the best players, teams and football contests over nearly 100 years.
• Old Trafford has been the home of Manchester United since 1910.  It is the largest club ground in Britain, and can accommodate over 76,000 fans in one go – that’s around 800 buses of fans!!
• To help celebrate the story of Manchester United, there’s a great museum at the stadium that covers every detail of United’s history, including the many trophies that have been won.  It gives you’re the opportunity to see the stadium through the eyes of Manchester United famous player.
• You can clamper over the famous North Stand, sit in Sir Alex Ferguson’s pitch-side dugout spot and explore the atmosphere of the players’ dressing room
• And then emerge through the tunnel onto the pitch!!
• Pretty good huh?  Whether you’re a Manchester United fan or not, a visit to the Museum & Tour Centre is a day to remember!
• You can find out more by looking at www.manutd.com

Listen again Old Trafford

The Seaside!

• The great thing about the UK being an island is that you are no more than three hours from the seaside so there’s no excuse not to pack your bucket and spade and go!  Go on, go now!  GOOOOO!!  Seaside is waiting!
• The seaside is the perfect place for all sorts of monster fun, ice cream and fish and chips and sandcastles and kite flying and all sorts.  Actually it’s the food that’s the best bit of the seaside isn’t it?  You can get candyfloss and doughnuts too can’t you – mmmm!
• And it doesn’t matter whatever the weather is up to, beaches are interesting places to find shells and poke about in rock pools, and if it’s really horrible weather you can go on the pier and play the penny slot machines – well you can if you have some pennies!

Listen again