May 285 min read

Children’s Season 2024

LEARN, PLAY AND CREATE WITH CHILDREN’S MUSEUM SINGAPORE AND THE MUSEUM ROUNDTABLE!

For children, by children: Children had a hand in shaping the offerings for Children’s Season 2024 and the new “Into the Hawkerverse” exhibition launching in conjunction with the festival.

Introduction

Children’s Museum Singapore is the first museum in Singapore dedicated to children 12 years old and below. The museum believes in sparking wonder and the power of play in a safe environment. CMSG aspires to be a place of wonder and joyful learning for all children to engage with Singapore and the world.

Families with young children can look forward to interactive exhibits, anchored in rich storytelling, complemented by engaging programmes and initiatives. Children will have hands-on opportunities to learn about Singapore’s heritage through play.

CMSG will organise educational programmes throughout the year to cater to children of different age groups and abilities. These programmes are created in collaboration with educators to ensure that they are developmentally appropriate for children.

CMSG is housed in a historical double-storey colonial building that was formerly part of Anglo-Chinese School in 1906. The building housed the Methodist Book Room in the 1970s and 1980s, before being converted to become the Singapore Philatelic Museum in 1995.

About Children's Season

Celebrate innovation and creativity this Children’s Season with Children’s Museum Singapore (CMSG) and the Museum Roundtable (MR)! Helmed by CMSG for the first time, this year’s edition of the festival is anchored on the theme of “Innovation”, inviting young ones to explore various inventions, and inspiring them to think creatively. From 25 May to 23 June 2024, families will be able to enjoy a slew of exciting programmes across 21 participating MR museums and galleries.

In conjunction with Children’s Season, CMSG will also be launching a new hawker-themed exhibition titled Into the Hawkerverse. Mrs Wai Yin Pryke, Museum Director of CMSG, said: “Children have some of the most imaginative minds out there, and there’s no better way to celebrate Children’s Season than to encourage this creativity. This year, we are focusing on the theme of innovation to inspire children to think outside of the box and become pioneering changemakers. We have lined up exciting programmes for Children’s Season together with the launch of our newest exhibition An institution of Into the Hawkerverse, to engage children in joyful learning and instil in them a love for our museums from young.”

Launch of Children’s Panel for Children’s Season

In collaboration with The Artground, Singapore’s first multi-disciplinary children’s arts centre, CMSG has formed the inaugural Children’s Panel for Children’s Season. The panel consists of 15 children between the ages of eight and 12, and aims to provide a range of arts and cultural experiences in various venues. Through this, CMSG hopes to provide children with autonomy, while tapping on their creativity and insights to shape the offerings for Children’s Season.

The Children’s Panel was involved in curating the line-up of Signature Programmes for the festival, where they reviewed and selected four out of seven shortlisted works to be further developed as the Signature Programmes. The Children’s Panel will also experience running the festival with a “takeover” of programme registration at select museums, making this Children’s Season truly for children, by children.

Children’s Season 2024 Signature Programmes and Partnership Programmes

The Signature Programmes for Children’s Season 2024 comprise a series of four interactive performances hosted across four participating MR museums and galleries, namely the Asian Civilisations Museum, CMSG, Former Ford Factory and Singapore Maritime Gallery. Each Signature Programme is site-specific to the presenting museum, making the content and experience unique to it.

For example, CMSG’s focus is on food innovation, which relates to its new special exhibition Into the Hawkerverse. Complementary to this, the Signature Programme at CMSG is Oodles of Noodles, where families can join a roving performance along Armenian Street, and help the main character Izzy invent new recipe ideas through a food trail. Participants will also get to create their very own fusion laksa craft at the end of the trail through a craft session.

Over at the Singapore Maritime Gallery, which showcases Singapore’s rich maritime heritage and industry, young explorers can embark on an adventure with a pirate crew while learning about Singapore’s development as a maritime nation.

CMSG has also joined hands with numerous MR members to bring Partnership Programmes to Children’s Season 2024. Partnership Programmes are free activities organised by participating MR members and hosted at CMSG, helping MR members tap on a new audience of children and families while creating fun experiences for them to enjoy. These programmes either fall under the theme of innovation, or are in line with CMSG’s Into the Hawkerverse exhibition.

For example, the Eurasian Heritage Gallery will be introducing a series of cooking workshops on Eurasian dishes for participants to get hands-on experience in cooking and trying dishes that they may not be familiar with. There will be three different workshops, where they will learn how to cook dishes from chef Mary Gomes, such as Curry Debal (also known as Curry Devil), Pang Susie (a savoury bun) and Kueh Kochi (a chewy kueh).

Into the Hawkerverse Exhibition

In conjunction with Children’s Season, CMSG will also be launching an all-new exhibition titled Into the Hawkerverse. The exhibition aims to introduce Singapore’s vibrant and indispensable hawker culture to children and deepen their understanding of hawker culture in a fun, immersive and interactive way.

Covering various aspects of hawker culture from street hawkers and hawker culture heroes to hawker dishes and hawker centre design, Into the Hawkerverse will feature hands-on activities, multisensory exploration, and object-based learning. Children will be engaged across three galleries and Play Pot, a dedicated playspace designed for children below four years old – featuring a masak-masak playspace with a mee goreng pool, and more.

Children’s Season Stamp booklet activity

In addition, Children’s Season’s well-loved stamp booklet activity will make a return this year! Families can visit any of the 21 participating MR members to get a stamp booklet to collect unique museum stamp imprints upon completion of a simple activity. Stamp collectors also stand a chance to win Children’s Season 2024 exclusive prizes once they have completed any of the three-tiered milestones in their stamp booklet, based on the number of stamps collected.

List of participating MR museums for CS2024 Stamp Booklet activity