It has become somewhat of a tradition for the girls to visit the SAM during their annual Children’s Season. Last year, the SAM didn’t have one, so the last time we went was actually in 2013. I realised, upon checking my blogging archives, that we have been visiting since 2010 when it first launched!
The first room we visited on the second floor allowed the girls to doodle on the walls! Very liberating for the average Singaporean kid I must say. Even I took the chance to scrawl an “I was here” message, without fear of recrimination or strokes of the cane.
We also made cute little origami paper rockets, did some drawing and colouring, as well as tried to write a letter to the moon in that room.
Next, there was an interesting mixed media interactive studio entitled “Let’s Make!”. With yarn as the main medium, the kids could follow instructions writ large on the walls, to make pom poms or embroider. As with the previous room, there were helpful staff on hand to guide us along.
The exhibition has been on for more than a month, so the full message below is somewhat hidden. Can you decipher the final three hidden words?
In that same room, there was also a corner where craft books and story books were laid out for parents and kids to read… It’s a shoes off zone, which was made for a nice cosy nook.
Next, we went to the room with the Dream House, which was easily the girls’ favourite room. Dreamed up by Korean artist Lee Jeeyoung, it truly reflects the kind of sweet candy land that children must dream of at some point… I particularly appreciated the familiar ‘Meiji chocolate mushrooms’ sprouting off the lavender roof.
At the back door of the candy house, was a yard full of trees. Children were invited to hang sweets on every branch that they could reach. At age 6.5 and 4, my kids still enjoyed running back and forth to deck the trees with sweets, which reminded me again how simple it is to make a child happy.
Part of the fun at SAM comes from the fact that there are so many different rooms to explore. Each one looks nondescript from the outside, so it’s quite a surprise to find out what’s behind the next white door.
In this room, there was a wall of ‘fish scales’, and children can find small colourful plastic shapes to fit in each ‘scale’. Four year old B enjoyed this quite a lot, but K, less so.
On the other side of the room were boxes filled with quirky art installations.
My favourite was this sunny side up egg.
The doodles all along the stairwell made for a very interesting backdrop too. I thought they were quite child-friendly and less nightmare-inducing that the doodles a few years ago. Perhaps this time around, they were drawn by slightly less angsty folk.
We spent some moments admiring them, and I thought this one was quite cute.
We visited the ground floor exhibition space last. The wall art depicted an HDB estate, which was easy to relate to, and made whimsical with superheroes flying past rainbows, as well as tetris blocks falling from the sky.
As did many other kids, B enjoyed moving the large tetris blocks around, and climbing up and down. I liked the parking sign, modified for strollers.
A miniature HDB estate requires miniature roads – I thought the curb and the double yellow lines were too cute.
If you haven’t been down again, do go! It’s free entry for Singaporeans (produce your NRIC or some other form of photo ID) – I recall having to pay previously, before museum entry was made free for Singaporeans. For non-Singaporeans, adult entry is at $10 each.
There’s a preschool activity sheet to download and print too, to accompany your visit!
Singapore Art Museum at 8Q (8 Queen Street)
Imaginarium Children’s Season
14 March – 19 July 2015
10am – 7pm (last admission at 6:15pm)
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