A great day out at Magna! We went when one of the four pavilions (the Air Pavilion) was closed so we got 20% discount. The cost for our family of five was £53. I thought this was great value for our day. We were there for four hours in total which included time to eat our lunch which we had taken with us and were able to eat in a designated area. There was also a cafe which sold various meals, kids meals, cakes, and drinks.

We started by watching the ‘big melt’ which was a reconstruction with sparks, noises, and a narration explaining what used to take place when it was a working steel works. My daughter enjoyed this but our toddler was scared, so my husband took him further away. We went on to the Fire Pavilion next. The big attraction in here was the fire tornado which we watched a couple of times. The older two especially enjoyed this. There were a lot of hands on things to touch and explore in this section such as conduction experiments.

After the Fire Pavilion, we went to a rocket workshop which we had to book on the way in but was free. This was a great educational experience for the kids. They both got selected to take part in the demonstrations which was fun for them. The man who took the workshop was very good and explained things well. It was basically a chemical reaction combining bicarbonate of soda and vinegar, trapping the gas to create explosive propulsion. The children (and parents) did this in small containers and then there were some larger ones to watch in demonstrations.

After this, we went to the Water Pavilion which I liked the best out of the three we went to. Again, there were lots of hands on activities that the children liked. They could squirt water, play with mini locks and toy boats, and there was a lot of educational information about our use of water. We struggled to move them on from here as they were having so much fun.

Lastly, we went to the Earth Pavilion. We spent quite a long time in here. There were three diggers that they could operate. The scoops could collect coloured balls. All three liked this! There was also a sandpit area, great for little ones, and a part which played music when you pressed buttons including the Bob the Builder music which my toddler loved! As we left, our eldest wanted a quick look at the small gift shop and the other two had a play in the playground. On a warmer day we would have made more use of this. Some of it was closed for improvements. I’m sure we’ll be back one day, especially to check out the final pavilion.