We had lots of fun last Sunday in imaginosity in Sandyford. We’d been invited to try out the play sessions and new Christmas workshops. I was a bit nervous going in, my kids are a two-and-a-half -year-old girl, and five- and seven- year-old boys so there’s a wide span of ages to keep entertained. The biggest is quick to decry anything and everything as “too babyish”, so I admit I was wondering how this would go. Happily, it went great.
We’d been before so when we arrived the boys ran straight up the very cool climbing tower which spans three floors. We met them at the top and checked out the “freaky mirrors” where we looked a bit strange.
part of the climbing tower
The kids had a great play and especially loved the construction area where the boys spent ages building a ball run with pipes aka plumbing and Ciará designed a house on computer.
teamwork
Laoise did a few trolley dashes around the supermarket and played for ages putting dollies to bed in the dolls’ houses and switching on and off the lights.
Seven-year-old Ciarán loved the gym area where he and I raced each other on exercise bikes on screen
And five-year-old Cathal was a big fan of the building zone, trying every aspect out
We were booked in to a science workshop as the boys love science and doing experiments. The workshop was shorter than we expected. Three snow-themed experiments were done, two by the facilitator with the kids’ help and one by the kids themselves, with the parents’ help. The kids really enjoyed it, but I thought that the experiments could have been explained better as my older kids, veterans of kids’ science sessions were asking questions and guessing the names of the liquids etc because they hadn’t been told what exactly was happening with the reactions. The session ended up being more like messy play than experiments. There were also lovely labcoats in the corner that nobody gave us til kids were covered in “science stuff” as they called it, grand for the older ones but for my small girl it was, well, messy.
Me being me, I’ve raised these issues with imaginosity and they have assured me that it was a blip and that all trainers are well trained and should give much more information that we received. Given that I’ve contacted them about this I expect the workshops run over the next few months will be particularly good, so I wouldn’t let that put you off and if you intend to visit I’d recommend lining up
Helping during the demo
Hands On Two Year Old
When we came out of the science workshop we got back to exploring-
there’s a TV studio where children (and adults) can read the news on camera, a stage, an interactive computer game, a maths area where you use your head, and lots of dress-up clothes to use to dress up and put on shows behind the theatre curtain.
There are three chairs, small, medium and large, and they’re directly proportionate – in the maths area
Other highlights include lots and of wooden trains, a health centre, a reading corner, and a safe soft play area for smaller children as well as a very cool outdoor area on the roof that’s closed during the winter months, but is worth checking out when the weather is better.
supermarket dash
Three Word Review
Seven Year Old: OK, Fine, Good
Five Year Old: Great, Fun, what Ciarán said
Two Year Old: Great.
Favourite Part
Seven Year Old: Tower Climb
Five Year Old: The climbing bit, the science and the supermarket
Two Year Old: Shopping with the trolley.
Mammy Review
I’m happy to review and recommend imaginosity as a play experience, there’s just so much for kids to do. I’d love to see the science session meeting its full potential and am confident that imaginosity will address the issues we raised. I think it’s best pitched at under-sixes, but that said my seven-year-old found plenty to keep him busy and found different things to play with this visit since his reading skills are good and he could figure out things himself. It’s educational but lots of fun and has loads to keep kids of all ages active. The cafe on site offers a great selection of buns and cakes, soup, sausages and wedges and paninis, at surprisingly reasonable prices.
Disclaimer: We were invited to Imaginosity and didn’t pay entrance fees, the usual fees can be found here. All opinions are honest and my own.
