Would you believe there’s a way to get your kids to learn AND move while displaying the same level of fascination usually reserved for a screen? No? Read on. This new digital media indoor playground is the biz.
Parents of Singapore, welcome to the indoor playground of the future. We’ve just road-tested MOSH!, Singapore’s very first “immersive edutainment facility”, and we’re happy to report that it does what it says on the box: it’s fun, creative, and hugely interactive (our March and Easter camps guide also has some creative ways to spend the term break). If you don’t know what an ‘edutainment’ facility is, don’t fret. You’re not failing as a parent. But, if your kids soon start harassing you to take them to “that cool new digital aquarium thing on Sentosa”, you’d better heed the call. Opening on 6 February, MOSH! is a super fun way to spend a couple of hours with your kids, and definitely beats hitting the local playground for yet another round on the scorching hot slide.
To us, the beauty of MOSH! is in the way it keeps kids enthralled while teaching them a few basic lessons AND getting them moving at the same time. Kids love getting creative with the little challenges and rewards as they make their way through the five different attractions, while tiny tots are mesmerized by the festival of colours exploding before their eyes (our resident seven month-old was engrossed for more than an hour). The MOSH! designers are from Japan, the epicentre of all things cool and clever, and it shows. The graphics are cute, playful and quirky, and we love it.
The fun is housed in one big room, so families can easily jump from one activity to the next and back again as much as they’d like. One minute the kids will be drawing pictures of fish – or anything their imagination tells them to – that then miraculously appear before them in the giant digital aquarium, and the next minute they’re playing hide-and-seek with quirky little characters on a digital tabletop. We particularly loved the ‘Fireworks Party’, which is basically an excuse for the whole family to jump around and dance, leaving a cloud of sparks and a trail of stardust in their wake. There’s also a fun little lesson in cause and effect, where kids can create their own paper plane and launch it at the giant detection screen with all their might. The quality of the paper plane dictates the size of the digital version that then appears, teaching kids to think about reengineering their plane for a better result.
We have a feeling there will be more and more of these kinds of ‘playgrounds’ popping up in future. While we’re big fans of jumping in puddles and running riot outside, we think MOSH! is a fantastic way to mix things up in the family entertainment stakes. Tickets are $28 for adults and $22 for kids, or $48 for one adult and one child (and under twos get to sneak in for free). Check it out at Palawan Kidz City on Sentosa from 6 February!
31 Beach View #03-01, Palawan Kidz City, Sentosa S098008; www.mosh.com.sg