We spent the day in Newtown, Johannesburg, today… at the Sci-Bono Discovery Centre.  It’s like a science museum only cooler… way cooler.  It’s 3 floors of stuff… packed with coolness and loads to keep the kids occupied.

It was easily the most fun we’ve ever had for R30!! Seriously, that’s all it cost to get in, because Connor was “free” ‘cos he’s under 6.   We got there at 11:30am… and I managed to drag them out of there at 3:30pm!! And they were complaining that they didn’t want to go home yet.

I was in two minds about going to Sci-Bono.  The only people I knew that have been there, have got little kids.  I was worried that Bradley would get bored.  Well, I’m not actually sure who was more engaged by the centre actually.  They definitely got different things out of the day.   Connor was just interested in getting things to work.  Bradley would intently read instructions to get them to work right… but he’s not yet interested in why it works like it does… and I’m sure older kids/teens would be… so it caters for all ages.  And it’s under cover!! Perfect for a rainy day! And for those worried about going to “scary” Joburg the parking lot is right outside with a guard.

And now for the photos… ‘cos that’s what you came to my blog for anyway

This Lego soccer stadium was at the entrance… isn’t it amazing?

Love the concentration

They had to use the paddle to create music and find the pipe that had the highest note.

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The highlight of the place was definitely the Murray and Roberts construction site.  The boys kept coming back here.  There was a “site office” where they had to get kitted out with hard hats and bibs.  There was piles of foam bricks and cement to build walls between steel structures…

… there was a crane that worked on a lever and pulley system…

I managed to tear them away to get them to a science show at 12:30pm.  And on the way we got sidetracked by this machine that showed pressure in a chamber when you used a lever to spin a soccer ball

The science show was fabulous.  They used chemicals to produce fires and all sorts of cool things for the kids to see… in this experiment she blew cake flour out of a funnel and lit it… I did not know that flour could burn like that!

Then she made bubbles with liquid nitrogen and I can’t remember what else

Bradley’s reaction after seeing the balloons filled with hydrogen explode…

Then it was time to see the dinosaurs.  They were awesome, and roared and moved when you pressed a button.  Really cool for the kids! And Bradley was amazing… he just looked at them and named them without reading the signs… he still remembers all those dino encyclopedias he used to read.

Both boys loved the Eskom section where they played with circuits and currents… this one used batteries to get a train to move around a track.

This was them running to get back to the construction area after being through all 3 floors of magnetic, electric and musical fun….

The toughest thing about today was deciding which blog to blog about it on! The Jenty blog which is about me and parenting… or this one… but in the end I decided that this is mostly about photos and my life in photos.  I’m having a bit of a dilemma with this blog at the moment… should I keep it only for clients?  But my story about photography is so important to me.

So this story has to be told here… partly because all the images were taken without flash… and I only used my 50mm again.  I’m in love with the 50mm at the moment for my personal photos and it just makes my camera so much lighter and smaller to carry… FTW!

And as far as the Sci-Bono centre goes… we’ll definitely be back.  Connor wants to go there again tomorrow… LOL! And I’vedefinitely decided that this is a definite party venue for one of them this year!