Planning where to bring kids to over the weekends is not an easy feat in mini Singapore. Either you keep going to the same few places, or you’ll keep doing the same few activities. Either the kids get bored, or the parents get bored. So, I am always on a lookout for novel and fun activities that I can bring my kids for. Just to enrich their experiences and open their eyes to more new things.
Last Saturday, we spent a great couple of hours at the Art Garden at Singapore Art Museum.
The Art Garden is not exactly a ‘garden’ per-say. Rather, it’s a series of interactive exhibits targeted at children. Art is abstract and profound, but I love it that we can bring it to the level of children, and in the process of introducing art to them, they learn how to appreciate beauty and see things from different perspectives. That’s anytime way better than boring theories learnt from textbooks.
It was definitely not my first time at the Singapore Art Museum because I’ve attended numerous weddings at this venue. But, it’s definitely my first time attending an exhibition here. The moment we got down from the car, the kids were attracted by the giant rabbit lying on the grass!
There were many other kids there as well, just like us.
Check out this exhibit right at the ceiling of the entrance area of the exhibition. It was a puppet with a blank white cone as its head. The projector projects video clips of a man’s talking face onto the blank cone and from where we were standing, it looks as if the puppet was talking to us. Interesting and creative. Baby Jayne couldn’t tell, of course. She just kept staring and staring at this ‘strange uncle’ talking. Haha!
Love this wall mural of colourful spinning windmill flowers! They were powered by solar energy and makes an interesting image of spinning flowers, contrast with the pretty tiled flooring. Check out Baby Jayne’s face! Happened to catch her wince?!
This was one of the exhibition space where kids can choose clothes off from the walls and ‘dress’ up the boys and girls on the walls. Everything could be attached on by velcro, very easy and fun to do. The kids can mix and match the shoes with the clothes and learn to make simple choices in this space.
The cloth props look so nice. Very inspired to make something like this myself! Haha! Didn’t seem too difficult at all.
Look, you can even choose the hairstyle of the person you’re dressing up. =P
There is a huge cloth birthday cake in the middle of the room, and the kids can velcro-on different decorative items onto the cake.
There is also a facilitator in the space to explain how the exhibits can encourage kids to be creative and original. It’s a great place to learn in a fun way.
Going into the next exhibition space, we got into yet another colourful room. I love it!
The girls felt so at ease in this room that they decided to sit down and people-watch! =.=
Check out this similar illusion exhibit.. The boxes are all white and blank..
But the projector projects onto them images of toys, and it looks as if we suddenly had boxes and boxes of different toys in front of us. Interesting! =D The kids were intrigued!
Yet another space is a place where kids can have hands-on experience at creating paper fruits. Many paper marsh art pieces created by different kids were on display. So colourful and pretty!
Look at all these paper-folded fruits. Look so real!
We also got a piece for Joey to try at home. Seems easy! Just need to follow the folding lines and glue the different parts together, and you’ll get a 3D apple! =D This is not the usual kind of art and craft the kids usually do. So creative, I say!
The facilitators also encouraged the children to doodle onto the white structure displaying the art pieces. My kids of course would not leave until they’ve drawn something!
Up on Level 2 of the Singapore Art Museum is a chapel, and they were showing an animation film there. So many children and parents were gathered there to watch and probably also to rest their feet. =)
The Art Garden exhibition was quite small, but fun enough for the children. Anyway, their attention span cannot last for too long, so I thought the size of the exhibition was just nice. But since we were already there, we went to check out the rest of the exhibitions they held there. Quite interesting too. =)
Got a small fright when I saw this statue. Looked so real, OMG.
Giant angel wings made of rubber slippers.
An entire set of exhibits of wooden tables and chairs with detailed engravings. SAM provided paper and pencil for people to trace the engravings on the tables.
All in all, it was a fun and educational day at the Singapore Art Museum. =D
