Scienceworks.

We went to Scienceworks on Friday. Good air-conditioned activity for a hot day, and we're members, so it's free. Children love it because there are heaps of hands-on activities. This construction site below is fantastic, the kids all mobilise when they get to it. Large-scale co-operation like you wouldn't believe. Highly channelled energy goes into shifting blocks: into a wall, out of the wall, down the chute, into wheelbarrows, up conveyor belts. It's all totally pointless when you look at it dispassionately but the kids have a ball.
My almost-7-year-old is probably at the perfect age for this and he enjoyed himself greatly; dashing eagerly to each new thing, exploring, having fun, interacting with other people.

The 4-in-a-corner-year-old was for the most part a big sooky-la-la.

Mostly. Throwing a ball into a vortex would cheer anyone up, I suppose.

I'm adoring the fact that my big boy is still so unselfconscious. Not only did he happily don the rabbit ears, he also gaily hopped (like a bunny) from activity to activity, quite oblivious to anyone else. So much so that he didn't realise that I'd had to take the Cherub into a corner to deal with a mini spak-attack. Fortunately he is also quite mature in lots of ways, so he took himself off to the entrance desk and announced to the woman that he was lost. A colleague was called in to help the Climber find us, but by this stage Cherub and I were walking round the exhibit in search of him, so it was not long before we were re-united. He had to blink back a few tears and needed a little mummy-cuddle, but I suspect he was slightly disappointed that his name was not called over the loudspeakers.