Winchester Science Museum

General 

Elliott was mainly good today. Towards the end of the day, when there were too many bigger boys at the skate park for it to be safe for him and Harry Higgins to have the run of the place to themselves, he got quite upset as he'd really been looking forward to going to the skate park with Harry. He would be upset and then calm down and then remember again and be upset again and then calm down and did this about 5 times. However eventually he calmed down and moved on and later in the car on the way home we talked about moving on from annoying things and how remembering things vividly can be upsetting.

Activities

In the morning we drove to Winchester Science Centre where we met up with Matt and Harry Higgins. The centre had lots of hands on exhibits (some more fun than others) and a Planetarium. After we'd had a snack in the cafe we went to the planets show in the Planetarium which was really good and Elliott was very interested in each planet as we looked at them and heard more about them. After the Panetarium show we went into the exhibits and the boys particularly enjoyed trying wheelchair basketball:

looking through a periscope:

rowing:

and testing their reactions on a reaction testing wall:

We also had a picnic lunch at the Centre and then headed out to the adventure playground:

After lunch and outdoor playing we headed back in to the Centre where they both spent about 40 minutes testing their reaction times on a 10 metre race track where their sprinting time was measured from a race start. After all the sprinting we all enjoyed a Van De Graaff Generator demonstration that included getting our hair to stand on end, making foil cake covers "magically" fly out of our hands and causing a big spark of electricity travelling from the big generator to a smaller metal globe:

After the Van De Graaff Generator demonstration it was time to go and we headed in to Winchester to a nearby skate park:

After about 20 minutes of scootering the park began to get quite crowded with bigger boys so we headed off to play football in the nearby park and this is when Elliott got quite upset. After he'd calmed down we went to MacDonalds for tea where both boys had chicken nuggets happy meals before we said goodbye and drove home. When we arrived home Elliott had his bath, brushed his teeth and went to bed quickly as it was close to 8pm by the time he'd had his bath and put his pyjamas on.