Wonderlab at The Statoil Gallery {Science Museum London}

Just before Christmas we spent a day at the Science Museum London. It’s a fantastic, free, museum in London which we love to visit. The children love science so we thought we would visit Wonderlab at The Statoil Gallery, a paying hands-on exhibition, specially designed for children.

Nothing beats the excitement of walking into the Science Museum. As you pass through security you get the most wonderful view of the huge engines in the Energy Hall. My children love this space, and it’s not hard to see why, especially when volunteers have some of the engines running. Anyway, we dragged the children past these to the third floor to Wonderlab. This is a paying exhibition and I would totally recommend getting an annual pass, which is only slightly more expensive than a day ticket.

Wonderlab at The Statoil Gallery

Wonderlab is spread across seven different zones, with plenty of opportunity to get hands on with real scientific phenomena. You can order live experiments at the Chemistry Bar, see lightning strike before your eyes, play with forces on giant slides or travel through space under a canopy of stars. You can also take part in explosive science demonstrations and shows, led by the Explainers.

Over half term we visited We The Curious in Bristol, a silly name for a similar science museum for kids. My children loved it and they were equally happy at Wonderlab. It’s an enclosed space so it was easy to let them run free and explore all the different things on display.

Some of our favourite thing included this heat map family portrait. There were so many things to try out. I’m not sure the children learned from everything they did but it’s the kind of place you can go to again and again and not get bored. The children liked different things. One of them loved the huge friction slides whilst the other loved the pulley up.

It’s such a fun place for kids, and us adults liked it too. I especially liked the area where you could sit down and try out some famous maths puzzles on tables, there aren’t many places to sit, so this was a very welcome quiet area!

I think we spent about 3 hours in Wonderlab and we definitely didn’t try everything. We also managed to see Flash! Bang! Wallop! in the little theatre, which was brilliant. With hands-on experiments to learn more about electricity, forces, light, maths, matter, sound and space, there really is something for everyone. The demonstrations definitely add another level of fun.

We went early in the morning, and had a break for lunch. We noticed it was much busier when we went back after lunch so I would recommend getting there early and deciding which demonstrations and shows you want to watch.

Wonderlab can be found in the Statoil Gallery on the Third floor of the Science Museum London.