Mind Stretching Fun

I'm not a big fan of Groupons and similar coupons. I think a lot of the time, people buy things they wouldn't normally have purchased in the first place. And 20%-40% of them are not used, which is a huge waste of money. But every now and then, I see a Groupon that really makes a lot of sense to buy. Right before Christmas, I saw just that type of Groupon.

I bought a one-year family membership to the Sci-Tech Discovery Center in Frisco for $39. We have been to this place a few times before with our kids and when family has come to visit. It's a small, hands-on science museum with rotating exhibits. I figured out that if we visited just twice this year, we would recoup the cost of the Groupon. And it's not far away, we don't need to pay for parking, and our visits can be as short as 1-2 hours. It will be nice to have the membership during the hot summer months when I'm looking for something different to do with the kids.

The Sci-Tech Discovery Center is located inside the Frisco Discovery Center near the Dallas North Tollway and Cottin Gin Road. We visited this past Friday to see the Animal Grossology exhibit before its final day (which is tomorrow).

The very first time we visited Sci Tech was during the Human Grossology exhibit, so we knew to expect a lot of visuals about poop and other gross things.

There were some trivia type games to play about slime and poop:

At 10:30, the center announced that a story time and experiment would happen in a few minutes.  We rounded up our kids for that.  The story was about snow, and the kids got to play with fake snow on paper plates.

Then they got to make their own snowmen out of marshmallows.

And of course they got to eat their creations!

I didn't see much of the story time and experiment though...my youngest child kept insisting she had to go potty and we left frequently.  I gave up on the story time and let her play in the Kid Zone nearby.

In addition to the Animal Grossology exhibit, there were other areas that appeared to be more permanent parts of the center.  Toward the back there is a space toy area that all three of my kids enjoyed:

And a place to make giant bubbles!

Some interesting magnet experiments:

And an indoor tornado!

We stayed about 2 hours and could have stayed a little longer had it not been so close to lunch time.  The center is closed during most of the month of January to change out exhibits.  We are looking forward to returning in 2013 to make good use of our yearly membership.

Check out Sci-Tech's website at http://www.mindstretchingfun.org/.