When she got too sweaty and tired, we headed into D'Marquee for some indoor crafts and munchies since she'll need energy to perform later during the race!

It's parent-accompanied for her category, so as usual Mami participated with her. It was quite confusing at first because they changed the initial rules of the race to something easier for the kids after the trial run and some of us were still quite uncertain what exactly should we do or not do. Anyway, the final verdict was to run with the bean bag, throw at the line, and solve the puzzle pieces. Unexpectedly, we won the race with a timing of 26 secs! :O




The prize is pretty impressive, a Trunki Bernard Bee ride-on luggage!


 


It was quite a fun event but the waiting time was too long, the categories before her had serious overrun issues so at some point of time she was getting really impatient because she had nothing else to do while waiting. We still had to stay back for the prize-giving ceremony and the present/trophy were the only things that kept her going. Good experience to join at least once!

On a fine Saturday morning when I was busy googling for playgrounds to go in Orchard area, I came across this newly opened playground from Bumble Bee Mum's post and when I saw the farming play area and her favorite supermarket, I immediately showed her the pictures and off we went within like, 45mins! (usually we take years from preparing to finally stepping out of the house because she is the master of nua-ing)

Little Planet Playland is inside The CentrePoint which was still undergoing renovations when we went there, so we were expecting less crowd in the playground. To our delight, there were only 3 families there including us! Imagine the joy and peace with cute smoothing children songs playing in the background while having the whole place to just us. This is a real plus point because all other indoor playgrounds are always filled with people and I'm always so busy running after her to avoid knocking into other kids or prevent her from snatching. I suggest to hurry and visit the place now before the mall is done with renovations and the place will be packed!

1. Farming Area

This is the first area welcoming us when we stepped into the playground, my first reaction was to jump into the "soil" area and start planting my carrots but when I turned around to ask her to join me, I realized that she has already ran straight into the supermarket area and pushing her trolley of food........

Anyway, I really like this idea because I have never seen this in any other playgrounds and it is really creative and interesting! Little ones get to enjoy and experience the planting, watering and harvesting process without having to dirty themselves or work under the hot sun. Of course this can't be compared to the countryside real life farming, but it's a pretty good education platform as a start for the toddlers since it'll be challenging to put them in the urban when they're so used to city life. We parents get to be comfy too while teaching them through playing! There's sufficient toy farming tools/food inside the area so the kids were playing peacefully without having to snatch, and there's also wheelbarrows for them to transport food around.

Sadly, she wasn't keen to play here and I suspect that it's because she disliked the "soil". Throughout the time spent in this area, she didn't step into the "soil" even once. She only sat down on the stairs to play and that was only after I promised to sweep away the "soil" on the stairs before she agreed to come in. Oh well, at least I got her to touch it.

2. Supermarket/Cooking Area

Here comes her favorite area, just look at all those lovely and so-yummy-looking food!

Papa and I were talking about how real all the toy food looked, how colorful and yummy they appeared. The quality of the toy food is really different here as compared to the normal ones that other pretend play playgrounds have. We're also discussing on how much the maintenance cost will total up to just to replenish the toy food (especially the cakes/desserts/bunch of fruits) because we did see some of them already showing signs of abuse having little holes here and there, decorations/colors peeling off and parts dropping off or torn apart. Majority of them were still in very good condition but we were just being too eagle-eyed, as usual. Well we can't really blame the kids since the food really do look too amazing and curiosity must have caused them to explore a little bit. (:

So once again I stress that you should visit here now before the toy food gets lesser variety or poorer quality!

Oh just look at how excited and happy she was with her basket and trolley of food!




Further inside, there's a relatively big space of cooking area with about 4 cooking pretend play stations and many food, cooking utensils and kitchen stuffs for them to play. There's also really cute child-size outdoor wooden benches for us to sit down and wait for food to be served while the kids are busy cooking.

5. Fishing Area

so silly laughing so hard when we both got "attracted" together

I'd recommend this playground for toddlers only because there're only 5 play areas and bigger kids will get bored very easily so it's not worth it when you can get more active play for them in other playgrounds with the same amount of admission fee. So if you have toddlers who love pretend plays, do drop them a visit!

Here's their Facebook page and admission rates:

Source : Little Planet Playland website

2015 was a tiring year with all the indoor playgrounds in trend, eXplorerkid @ Downtown East was on our to-go list too.

Situated in E!hub Downtown East, it's ideal for families to pay a visit during their stay in D’Resort because it's just next door. However, its location is in the rather extreme end of our little red dot so it's pretty hard to attract families in the west. That said, since our bus trip down doesn't take too long, we decided to head down!

It was a welcoming sight when we got there because the place is so spacious you can see everything inside even from the entrance.

1) Adventure Highlands

Source : eXplorerkid Website

This is the first play station just by the entrance, I was quite impressed about this idea because I've always been a fan of obstacle course so I'd also like my child to have a try in a safe and comfortable environment first before going outdoors. It's good mixing this concept into an indoor playground because the kids get to experience something different from the usual active play. The course has 2 levels and I was so excited to let her try the lower level but, turned out she still wasn't brave enough. Let's hope we can get some pictures of her trying out the course soon!

Additional charges apply:
- Adventure Course (upper level-minimum height requirement is 110cm): $6.50 per circuit
- Junior Course (lower level) : $5.50 per circuit

2) Mega Play

This is their multi-level active play structure, it has quite a variety of obstacle to crawl through and also has 2 slides, one of it is really fast and fun (the open one)! Parents with kids below 2 might need to be extra careful because the small kids might slide down too fast and fall flat on the cushion upon landing so it's better to sit together with them. After a few tries, she wanted to slide down alone and was enjoying it so much! There's also The Cliff right at the back of the structure play which is a rock-climbing wall. However most of the holds are missing so it seems like it's not well-maintained and just for show.

3) Lit Ball Pool

This was a first too because all other playgrounds with ball pit were using the normal colored balls. The lighting shone through the transparent balls so the ball pit was quite pretty. That kept her occupied for quite a while.


Here's their Facebook page and admission rates:

Source : eXplorerkid web