The Little Singapore Book Comes Alive at Children’s Season 2017
Children’s Season opens tomorrow and we can’t be more excited. Starting 27 May until end of July, kids can literally walk into the pages of The Little Singapore Book at the National Museum.
The authors and illustrator testing out the puppet theatre.
Two installations for the Children’s Season brings The Little Singapore Book alive in full, walk-in 3D! Diane’s amazing illustrations now stand child-height, complete with fun activity stations, and additional landmarks not featured in the book.
The exhibits highlight three old forms of transport in Singapore — the trolley bus, trishaw and bumboat (or tongkang).
The first installation, on the first floor foyer of the museum, is the Bumboat Trail. Created in collaboration with first and second year visual arts students from the School of the Arts Singapore (SOTA), it’s a fun-filled space that brings to life the landmarks along the Singapore River on which bumboats used to ply. Our favourite is the re-creation of the Cavenagh Bridge, complete with silver cables and the old sign prohibiting cows and horses to cross. The Old Parliament House is done in miniature too, and doubles up as a puppet theatre, while the Fullerton Building’s former role as the General Post Office is remembered by the mail sorting game.
Kids can even pen a postcard to themselves, stick on a read stamp (all provided by the museum) and mail it off at the vintage red British mailbox in the middle of the installation. The museum will get it into our real postage system and kids will receive their postcard at home a few days later. How cool is that?
Upstairs the Trolley Bus & Trishaw Trial is a larger installation, created in collaboration with students from NTU. In this small, colourful space, kids can sample Singapore’s old cultural and entertainment landmarks, including Haw Par Villa, Chinatown and the Happy World.
There are lots of photo ops here — look out for the very detailed wall of Peranakan houses — and fun stations like colouring Peranakan ’tiles’ and creating your own heritage town. Remember to read the exhibition panels — like in our book, it offers nuggets of little known information about Singapore years and years ago.
Please bring your kids to enjoy the National Museum. Grandparents too would probably enjoy this blast from the past, and have lots to share with the family.
Beyond our two fun spaces, there’s also a tongkang bouncy castle on the front lawn, a sleeping giant in the basement, and a giant suspended netted lounger at the main rotunda where you can climb into and enjoy the view of the coloured glass dome.
