I have. I took the kids to Rochester Mall last weekend for a half day full of kids friendly fun. Because a good parent is me, ha!
Here’s how we spent an educational and relaxing Saturday at the mall:
My Gym @ Buona Vista
I signed Georgia up for a 1-hour Gymster class (for 18 months to 3 years) at My Gym @ Buona Vista. We arrived bright and early and ready to play!
The structured class commenced with 5 minutes of Explore time & practising agility on a rope ladder, followed by the much anticipated Hi Hi welcome song, greetings and warm up exercises while sitting around the red circle.
Next came the Song segment (Wake Up Your Muscles) focusing on better-listening skill and Dance segment (Rockin’ Robin via Jackson Five style) enhancing gross motor skill set. A weekly Practice Skill was taught and guess what? It’s Flying with a Backflip, a fun skill that helps with balance and motion.
It’s Adventure time and this week was ‘Interaction’ when the toddlers were encouraged to walk up and down the planks which helped them to work on balancing and understand the depth perception as the planks were slightly off the ground. Georgia didn’t care much about this activity but she lapped it up when she got to bounce on the trampoline. Not surprising… since her favourite animal to imitate at home is the frog!
Next, the core element of My Gym program is Gymnastics. This week skill stations were Monkey Bars and Aerobat, mainly focusing on upper body strength coordination and tumbling sensory integration.
Who doesn’t like swing? Here’s Georgia who wouldn’t stop grinning as we pushed her swing. This activity is to get the kids used to the swinging motion and so they won’t have a fear of heights. I don’t think the heights issue ever crossed Georgia’s mind but there I was feeling worried whether the bar would hold up those swings. *Overtly concerned parent syndrome – I can’t help it*
All was well, of course. Georgia was safely back on the ground and moved on to other activities. Here she is helping to clean up after they played with musical instruments.
The thing I like about My Gym @ Buona Vista is their dedicated teachers who are very childlike themselves. From the way they speak to their full on role play story telling, they are delightful to watch. The kids clearly love them and Georgia seemed comfortable with them right away.
MyGym is a U.S program with 30 years of experience in children’s fitness. They offer both PlayGroup – school based program and Fitness program for children from 4 months to 13 years old. The classes are 1 hour long and fees are SGD490 + GST for 10-week sessions. You can find out more about their playgroups, fitness classes, holiday camps and birthday packages
here or follow their Facebook page here.
Busy Tables
While Georgia was doing somersaults and hanging on monkey bar, Lauren busied herself at the Busy Tables right next door. Busy Tables is an indoor playground – without the usual slides and climbing structures. Instead, you will find educational toys, books and manipulative that young children between aged 0 to 6 can quietly play on the floor.
This is not a playground where you’ll find kids running amok and screaming their heads off. In contrast, Busy Tables is very calming and since it’s catered for younger children, I wouldn’t have to worry about the girls being knocked down by an older kid. It is a safe environment for young children to play and explore – which I find awesome for my sanity. Who else usually feels a headache coming on after a visit to a noisy playground?
The toys and learning activities here require parent supervision, but the centre also provides drop-off service if you need to run errands or get your hair done at Tony & Guys, located in the same mall. I sneaked off for a while to visit the newly opened Equilibre (I’ll get to that later), and came back to find Lauren arranging alphabet blocks in the right order by singing the ABC song.
Busy Tables is divided into six sections with different activities:
The Toddler Play area has a little cubby house with 2 princesses chairs and a whole lot of toys suitable for baby and young toddlers.
And of course, my kids have to squeeze themselves into the baby seats!
The Reading Corner is filled with very new looking baby cloth books as well as paper books. They look so pretty and interesting I wish my girls are babies again.
Lauren and Georgia love building blocks at home, so they were more than happy to explore the Construction Area. All these boxes contain constructions shapes and toys that I’ve never seen before. But nothing can stop the kids – they just figured it out. It is such a great activity for encourage creativity and fine motor skills.
Another interesting area at Busy Tables is the Dark Room. It has a row of lit tables with marbles and straws on it. I think it is supposed to highlight the different colours, shapes and shadows of the items. My daughters were happy dumping everything onto the mini weighing machines and pretended to bake. Girls will be girls.
The Sensory play area is a small area with a table containing materials for sensory play. This is meant for babies and toddler to touch and feel the materials. The management changes the contents every two weeks, so it’s always fresh and fun for the little ones.
And my favourite section to explore is the wall of Learning Resources Library. On these shelves, you can find bags and boxes of activities, carefully labelled with instructions. They are sorted by levels. They are sorted by level of difficulty, with Level 1 being the easiest and Level 8 being the most challenging.
You know how kids get bored with one activity and move on to the next very quickly? We spent a good one-hour doing animal puzzles, tangrams and colours sorting and
barely managed to go through half the activities available. I was told that Busy Tables brings in new toys and books every week, which you can view via their
Instagram account.
All in all, we spent more than 2 hours at Busy Tables. I absolutely love the place and we will be back for sure. Busy Tables is available for big group playdates and they run interesting workshops from time to time. For more information on rates and opening hours, you can always check out
their website or
Facebook page.
équilibre
Another interesting outlet to highlight at Rochester Mall is équilibre – a wellness studio founded by Susan Su Lengowski, the first Taiwanese classical ballerina to graduate from the world-renowned Vienna Municipal Conservatory Austria.
équilibre offers Pilates, Gyrotonic® and ballet barre classes for adults and children aged 6 to 12 years old. For over a decade, Susan has helped clients with injuries and misalignments of the body, as well as pre and post natal and surgery clients build balance, core strength, flexibility, joint mobility and stimulating circulation.
For those of you with an unfulfilled childhood dream of becoming a ballerina, you can join the Ballet Barre classes here. It is conducted at a slower pace and in accordance with the classical ballet syllabus. It helps to strengthen and develop long, lean muscles while focusing on the extension and elongation of the entire body. For registration and enquiries, here’s their
website.
Conveniently located next to Buona Vista MRT,
Rochester Mall is a family-friendly mall which has lots of unique and interesting enrichment schools for the young ones such as KAAMP (Kids Art Academic Mentorship Program) Chengzhu Mandarin, My Drum School, Aureus and Kindermusic.
There are also many lifestyle services such as massages, nail and hair studio to keep you pampered while waiting to the kiddos attend their classes. Otherwise, there are lots laid-back alfresco dining options to hang out at and catch up with family and friends.
Pies & Coffee
After the play sessions, we were famished and rewarded ourselves with lunch at Pies & Coffee. They serve breakfast items and warm baked pies all day long. Yummm yum….
Lauren demanded to have the Hazelnut & Banana pancake while Georgia and I shared a Big Breakie which comes with scrambled eggs, bacon and cheesy sausage and a piping hot chicken mushroom pie. Happy to report nothing was left on the plates by the time we left.
If pies and pancakes don’t tickle your fancy, there are many family-friendly restaurants including Kaz Japanese Restaurant, Sixty40 Bar & Cafe, Call Cafe, Doi Chaang and Swissbake.
Rochester Mall is located at 35 Rochester Drive, Singapore 138639.
Wow, I don’t even know there is a shopping mall call
“ROCHESTER MALL” and I’m very surprised that there are so many kids’ friendly amenities there.
Is time to visit the mall this coming weekend! Thank you!
We did a few holiday programmes at Abrakadoodle (I think it’s no longer there), since then I have not been there in a long time. Looks like there are so many new and exciting shops! But I can’t go there once without wondering (to put it politely) what frame of mind these people must have been in to design such a odd shaped layout. LOL!
Went there once to My Gym Rochester Mall for a birthday party. Truly the teachers are childlike and awesome!
Went to Rochester Mall once to attend a birthday party at My Gym. I love the Teachers there too, childlike and engaging.
I have passed by Rochester Mall but never get into one. It is interesting to see the development of One-North. I usually like that place on weekend or PH when it is less crowded.
I have been to Rochester Mall many a times and used to live nearby but since the time I have moved from there it is too far to visit the place. Good to see few new outlets for kids have open up.
Actually, I’m not sure i’ve been to Rochester Mall EVER!! thanks for highlighting it out! 🙂
Ai @ Sakura Haruka
I have never been to Rochester Mall because I always feel that it is more like an office-mall instead of a shopping mall? LOL. Busy Tables look really fun!! Will definitely schedule a day to explore.
I’ve been to Rochester Mall a couple of times, and love the place too!
-Mary