East playgrounds

Waterway Point Indoor Playground@ Punggol
20 Feb 2016

This new shopping mall has a Wonderland playground situated on the 2nd level near the baby and toy shops like Toysland  and 1010 Mother & Child Essentials. 

This is an Alice in the Wonderland themed playground with Mad Hatter and the-like characters. There are plenty of climbing structures for tots in the shapes of mushrooms (bouncy), tea cups, flowers, butterflies. There is a small slide carved out from a tree. The structures look like they are made of some hard materials but they actually feel rubbery and firm, so you do not have to worry about your child knocking himself on the structures. The whole place is padded, even the walls. There are plenty of benches all around the playground for parents and caregivers to sit and keep a watchful eye over their tots. 

There is even a shoe racks for you and the children. The best part is that it’s free of charge but can get quite crowded during peak hours and weekends. This playground is best suited for preschoolers and tots below 7 years old.

Castle Beach @ East coast park
27 April 2014

A group of us organised an Easter picnic on East Coast park beach and we decided to check out Castle Beach. Castle Beach is a social enterprise started by Alvin Lee (Castles Can Fly http://www.castlescanfly.com/castle-beach ) and they built a castle-shaped structure on East coast beach next to Lagoon Food Centre in front of E2 carpark. They conduct free sand castle building demos every weekend from 3.30pm till dark and you will always see a crowd of people in front of the Castle Beach structure on the mounds of sand working away on their piece of sand castle art.

 Briefing before demo starts

We were there promptly at 3.30pm and saw Uncle James setting up the tent ‘store’ where they sell the Beach Work sets of sand castle building tools. We bought the Super Deluxe Beach Works set. http://www.castlescanfly.com/castle-beach/merchandise which included a pack of soldiers to guard and do battle in the castle. 

2 families in our midst had the Beach Works sets and we started to work on a mound of sand by first pouring lots of sea water to make the sand moist. Then Uncle James gave us a demo on how to use the tools to build our sandcastle.

Alvin Lee demos how to deco and make pine trees

We attracted a small crowd of people when Alvin Lee started helping us on our castle, mainly because the National Geographic photographers wanted to take a shot of us at work! We were asked by Alvin to quickly decorate the castle for the photographers, so we set to work with the soldiers while Alvin showed us how to make more stairways around our castle. Some of our kids wanted to make a moat so they got busy and distracted with that task. Soon other kids with the same sand castle tools started extending our structure.

 Pros at work on an impressive structure

In the next mound, Uncle James and his team were building a very professional looking structure which also attracted a crowd.

Our Beach Works Super Deluxe set $50

We are contemplating bringing this Beach works bag of tools (containing items like wallmaker, stairmaker, mallet, battlement, lookout tower, watch tower, scraper & shovel etc) on our next beach holiday but the thought of lugging this bag (size of Ikea shopping bag) on any plane or coach is worrying because of the bulk...

*******************************************

Wild Wild Wet

  Professor's Playground (photo belongs to Wild Wild Wet site)

Professor's Playground : Photo update 9 Aug 2013

http://www.wildwildwet.com/kids-friendly.php

We were fortunate to have been invited for a corporate day trip with a friend and her son to wild wild wet in Dec 2012. J was at first apprehensive of water slides and lots of splashing water but with a friend by his side, his fears were soon gone as soon as he saw the water play areas.  I did not manage to take any photo while inside Wild wild wet as my camera was in the locker and we were in our swimsuits all the time!

J especially liked and spent a lot of time at Professor’s Playground with its many climbing structures and various different slides of different steepness and length, there is one to suit most kids from 2+ to 12. These slides were gentle enough to coax my cautious 6 year old to try out as they seemed very un-intimidating to the novice. Some slides were covered (like tunnels), most were opened. A word of caution though, some kids were screaming inside the tunnels for fun but they can be quite scary for a child entering the tunnel in semi-darkness to hear the screaming.

Yippee Toddler's Playground (photo belongs to WWW)

Yippee photo update: 9 Aug 2013

There is a toddler playground in ankle deep water called Yippee which most babies and toddlers can find themselves happy to be in with simple sprays and shallow wading pool.

Shiok River waterway



The usual River waterway called Shiok was there and it included a portion where people on land can spray the people in the river with water guns, the boys found that quite fun. There was a wave pool called Tsumani whose waves come on every half hour. Large transparent, yellow double floats and smaller green floats were strewn around aplenty for you to help yourselves to without extra payment. The kids should be wearing life jackets provided at the entrance.

Ular-la (photo belongs to WWW)

Large slides photo update: 9 Aug 2013

The surprise element for me was the Ular-la jumbo slide where 4-6 people can sit in a large circular float and whizz down a curved slide which was really thrilling. I was surprised that J liked it so much that he and his friend asked to go on over and over again. You’ll have to climb 4 storeys up and gather a group of 4 people or you will be asked to join other groups going down. You’ll have to hang on to the handles as the ride can be very steep at the beginning and rather jerky or swirly at times.

We spent almost the whole day there from 1030am to 4pm until it started raining, we then headed for some fast food as our tummies were rumbling with hunger (we missed lunch in all the fun!).

Wild Wild Wet is located at Downtown East in Pasir Ris and the tickets are $14 (3-11 yrs), $19 (12 to adults) and $60 for a family of 4. There are kid friendly facilities like kids showers, nursing rooms, pram parking and baby water carriers for free use.

The outing ended on a choo-choo train which was set up during the Christmas season at Downtown east concourse.

Update: 9 Aug 2013. We obtained some discounted tics and took our Filipino friends there for another round of fun. This time, the adults tried the Waterworks in which you went down on your own or with a float - you can choose to go down on the fully covered tunnel slide (in which you can't figure out whether you are going to slide right, left etc) with a surprise element or an open slide. Pity the Torpedo (vertical drop) was not functioning, that would be a dare devil ride as with the Slide Up where you go on a 2-man float and drop down a steep slide on one side only to go up the other side in a U shape slide but that looked very dangerous as the sides of the U shape slide was open with no barrier!

T3 Slides



We checked out the Terminal Changi Airport Slides on our last trip to Korea in late September and had a great time going on it over and over again. The tall one (Level 1) was rather fast but the shorter one (B2 level) was just nice in height and speed for J, it was 'medium speed' according to him. We were there rather late at 10pm so there was no crowd but I reckon it might be busy at other times especially on weekends since it's a free ride.

You'll have to wait for the green light to enter (one at a time) the slide area (cordoned by a glass door) and once you have completed the run, you'll have to press a red release button for the door to open at the bottom of the slide. So your child has to be able to follow instructions to do that or else he/she can't exit from the slide area. When we were there, there was no attendant so when the slide entry system (with the red and green light) had an error, the whole slide was 'jammed' and could not be used, we had to call the security to come by to fix it. J had apparently opened the door but did not enter, but the sensor detected him as an entrant and waited for him to exit at the bottom before the light could turn green for the next person to enter the slide. Since he never entered, the system kept showing 'red' so it was 'jammed' up by J's action.

Check out the website for more information, the website mentioned about spending to ride on the slide but we went on it for free
http://www.changiairport.com/at-changi/entertainment-lifestyle/the-slide-t3;jsessionid=A77EFE33A322D16E5A12B6BF191B942E

*****************************

Changi Airport Terminal Two Playground

We chanced upon this rather large indoor play area at Terminal Two Changi Airport while waiting for our flight to Korea. We were glad that we spent time here, it had many tall and small slides which J enjoyed thoroughly, different ways to climb up, some unsupported and a bit challenging (e.g. free open steps with no railings) but it had sufficient variety of climbs and slides to keep J busy and happy for some time since we were early for our flight. Next to this playground is a baby and parent lounge with sofa seats, a tv showing baby shows and some toddler toys for the younger child. The other plus point is that this playground overlooks the plane docking area so kids can watch planes coming in and the ground crew at work, very interesting and engaging for young kids.

***************************************

Changi City Point

We were pleasantly surprised by the Waterplayround we discovered at the 3rd floor open terrace of Changi City Point just outside of the Koufu foodcourt. Besides the usual fountains and waterguns and sprays, it had a carousel of swings allowing kids to swing with their feet dangling into the water, looked fun.



There was also a dry playground next to the wet one. J went to play there – they had a obstacle course-like play structure with a wooden bridge, slope up and down, rope-grab monkey bars etc and the usual Kompan Danish play equipment twister and circling bowl plus a net climbing structure, no slides though and J found the 2pm sun too scorching as the ground (no shoes zone throughout wet and dry play areas) burning hot!

Over in the shopping mall itself at the ground floor, there were 2 open-air gardens spots with ponds built into the mall, which attracted many kids with the water feature and fountains. In between the 2 garden spots were stone built into the floor with water flowing between the 2 garden glass structures, I captured a girl playing hopscotch on the large stones. This is a very welcome touch in the urban landscape of the mall and surrounds.

***************************

Peek-a-boo


Peekaboo is located at kallang leisure park #02-12/13 just next to the mrt station. Per entry charge is $12 for 10-23 mths, $15 for 2 yrs and above. Adults and babies under 9mths go in free. They also have a drop off (babysitting) service at $15/hr for the first 2 hours, $5/hr thereafter. www.peekaboo.com.sg

I believe this was once the east branch of GoGo Bambini but it was called Peekaboo already 2 years back when I brought J here. We came on a Monday afternoon and there were only a few children in the playscape. J brought a friend and his toddler brother here to celebrate his friend's birthday.

Peekaboo has a 'rocket' theme as can be seen in the entrance pic. There are some toddler ride ons and toys, playhouses, teether totter, a toddler swing and slide. The playscape itself has 4 levels of climbing structures of play and the nice thing is the ball pit area is very big such that there was room for the toddlers to play safely away from the more rowdy preschoolers.

J liked the 3 storey spiral slide which landed in the ball pit. There were easy and challenging tunnels, suspension bridges, soft climbing structures and nooks and corners for 'hideaways'.

There was also a good-size trampoline right in the middle at the ground level of the playscape. The boys enjoyed themselves very much and there was room at the bottom of the plascape for adults to walk around the structure to keep an eye on the children at play. The attendants were also watchful and friendly. An adults corner with seats, magazines, free Wi-fi and drinks/snacks was at the other side so if you sit there, you can't really see the kids at play. One thing I noticed, although they sanitised the hands of the boys as they entered, there was no temperature checks.

This is a nice-sized playscape, enough to keep two preschoolers busy for a long time. We will visit again when we are in the area.

**********************************

The Petite Park

This is a walk-in indoor play space and party facility for kids under 7 (less than 130cm) located at Changi City Point (opp Expo MRT). It's weekend rates are $18 for 2 hours play time ($6 thereafter) and weekdays $16 for unlimited play time per entry. Adults enter for free except during weekends, only 1 adult is permitted to accompany the child. see www.petitepark.com.sg

We chanced upon this new indoor playground when we were manning our Dwinguler exhibition booth at Expo in the recent Motherhood fair. We didn't bring Junior into this playground, it looked a tad small for him although many of the feature play areas look rather similar to to Singkids japanese play system, especially the balloon play (with wind blowing the balloons) and the merry-go-round. The whole place is rather opened, narrow and long. parents can sit outside along the seats (see below) to keep an eye on their children at play.

See also my blog on infant-toddler and preschooler child development - sharing from my doctoral studies on early childhood education and my reviews on kids products
Infant-toddler resource blog