Author: SengkangBabies

I am a Blogging Daddy of four. Our kids are roaming Singapore to bring you FUN, This blog is use to capture our kids' growing up phases, and we want you to leave our blog with a smile :)

Children’s Season 2014, Play@NMS

If you drive pass National Museum of Singapore, you will noticed two iconic playgrounds (有龙有象). Once inflated, yesterday’s playground turn into giant bouncing castles!

As we walk nearer, we found some OLD familiar characters! Anyone remember our Elephant and Dragon stories?

Children quickly remove the foot wear and proceed to slide down “yesterdays” bouncing castles!

Welcome to Children’s Season 2014 at National Museum 🙂

(Image credit I ♥ Museums)

We believe Tan Family also had a Fun outing with the playgrounds 🙂
children's season 2014

Video : Rocking the Dragon and Elephant playgrounds !

Old playgrounds Singapore

Children’s Season 2014’s National Museum theme is “Masak Masak : My Childhood”.
Let us showcase more old school games (pre-Atari and nintendo season).

Giant five stones anyone? or maybe Marbles? (watch the video for the actions)

We took the lift up for more Play.

Look what we found at the 3rd level and in the lift.

P.L.A.Y! Children’s Season is all about getting kids to play, to interact 🙂

Who spotted the barn Owl?

There are some sculptures waiting for kids to explore. We had to give it a miss due to the long queue.

We found some interesting toilet rolls art work! So detailed and intricate. Kids were trying their best to peep into each hole for more surprises.

Daddy hope the toilet roll artwork can be lower so that the short ones everyone can enjoy the paper art. Each “roll” tells a story.

At this “dark room”, we are supposed to draw our own imagination with a LED torch. Kids try their best to project their creations onto the wall.

Do take note of the Bouncing castles timing (11am to 1pm, 3pm to 5pm)

I ♥ Museums and their top 5 tips for PLAY@NMS (National Museum).

(Image credit I ♥ Museums)

Masak Masak : My Childhood will be exhibiting at National Museum until 03 Aug 2014, and admission is free. (by the way, Masak Masak is Melayu for Play Cook).

Select Museums will be free during Children’s Season 2014. Do pop by their Website and Fanpage for latest updates. Up to 21 museums await you!

Which Museum is free

You might be interested in our Army Museum and Art Science Museum
(only for reference, as Children’s Season itinerary will be different).

More Masak Masak photos have been uploaded into our Fanpage album.

People’s Association Parent Child workshop

“Never-Eat-Soggy-Wanton” was printed on our trainer’s Tshirt.

It sure left an impact on Boon Wee, Daddy hopes Boon Wee will remember his North-East-South-West topo (orienteering) skills.

We were invited to one of People’s Association (PA) parent-child course last Saturday. Named “Amazing Duo”, participants get to learn about navigation with compass and map.

As the course was designed with family in mind, it provides an opportunity for Daddy to bond with Boon Wee.

Whenever Daddy drives, Boon Wee is the one keying in the GPS destinations. Boon Wee understands that if we follow the GPS turn-left turn-right instructions, we will get to our destination. But what if our GPS breaks down or there is no GPS signal?

Treasure Hunt Bishan

Daddy thought PA’s orienteering workshop will help Boon Wee to understand more about navigation, and pick up a life skill.

Orientation is easy for adults (well, for most guys :p ) as we can understand the concept and have a better sense of direction. Daddy purposely kept quiet when Boon Wee is navigating. We are curious to find out about his confidence in navigating.

More importantly, Boon Wee knows it is ok to make mistakes, we want our kids to be brave enough to take the first step (out of their comfort zone).

“Amazing Duo” was a fruitful event to help Boon Wee learn the fundamentals of navigation.
Let us share more about the fun activities.

Our trainer Sebastian (from Build N Grow), started the day with some ice breaking activities.
We played Dragon, Elves and Wizard (improvised from scissors-paper-stone), tring to decimate the opposite camp.

After we have warm up, we started our navigation course with cones and a map.
Kids need to study the “map”, identify the location of “coloured” cones.

Working as a pair, parent and child need to go to different checkpoints (cones) in sequence. The kids were dashing to snare the fastest timing, leaving the poor parents struggling behind to catch up haha.

Video : Running circles around the Cones

As we progress, the cones become more challenging too. One person has to shout the instructions “BLUE one, BROWN one” while the other dash to check-in at the cones.

By now, everyone knows the importance of “holding” the map in the correct orientation.
If orientation is wrong, cones position will be wrong.

Next, throw in a compass and North-East-South-West (NESW), and kids will get a little bit disoriented (pardon the pun).
Map reading for kids

Navigation’s first tip is always to know our North (Hands point towards North).
The compass’ bearing allow us to identify the direction of our checkpoints.

If we are still reading the map upside down, it means we are still confused about orientation, and will definitely lose our way.

Kids get to practice their new skills at Bishan Park, reading their map, identifying the route to the next checkpoint, all in a safe environment. Through a few tasks and encouragement, kids build up their confidence.

Daddy took the opportunity to remind Boon Wee to pay attention during briefing sessions.
He has a short attention span and could miss out some crucial details during briefing.

In fact, we hit our first obstacle pretty quick.
In his eagerness to complete the navigation task, Boon Wee miss one step, and all the subsequent checkpoints became “inaccurate”.

Lesson learned, it is always better to be careful than to be the fastest.

The final test for us would be to navigate and find a few checkpoints in Bishan Park under 50mins.

The navigation skills which Boon Wee picked up will be useful when he is traveling overseas. It was very fulfilling to witness Boon Wee’s confidence grows, as he hunt down the checkpoints.

We would like to thanks People’s Association for providing an opportunity for father and son to learn a new skill together. For more fun holiday activities, do pop by PA’s website.

We have been declared the Most Calm Duo! Daddy thought maybe we look too idle relaxed?

Click on link if you wish to find our more about Bishan Park (longkang fish) or basic GPS tips. Checkout Jbabies‘s experience too.

Pop by our Fanpage album for more Fun photos on Orienteering day itself.

** disclaimer. A fee was received for this blog post.