[Boris the Good]

Originally Posted by Momto5

Just some thoughts:

* a puppet station with a puppet theater and puppets

* a dress-up area with costumes

* consider a scheduled circle time where staff can lead the preschoolers in songs and activities. Circle time is an easy way to redirect toddlers.

* a child-sized village - maybe a grocery store where they can purchase groceries, a post office, a restaurant, a school, etc. Our local children's museum has this and is always well-used.

* smaller spaces where younger kids can go if they need a break from the larger scene. Perhaps you could set them up in the context of listening/reading stations where children can curl up, put on headphones and listen to or read a book or music.

Sounds like a fun project. Let us know what happens.

For the first three items that sounds good for our Birthday party menu. The shop idea I will note and see how we are for space.

I definitely have thought about books and audio visual stuff as we are going to be multi cultural / language we will probably go with more audio books ( can get a lot of that on a hard drive ) and cartoon / Teletubby / Barney / Sesame Street type video. Tom and Jerry are BIG in China !!!

[hkaussie]

Sounds quite amazing, look forward to hearing more!

[Buckeroo]

Do have a library where parents and children can borrow (or even rent out) books and other materials --e.g. parenting resources, story books, music CDs, etc.

[Boris the Good]

There will be audio visual and the type I have mentioned before. I.E. audio books are more efficient for space and selection of language product.

Unfortunately we will not have the facility to do rental. The average stay of a visitor to Macau is 1.6days. So in most cases we would not have them returned !!

[jane01]

The best children's playroom I have ever visited in any country in the world is "Mini Q" at Questacon in Canberra, Australia.

http://www.questacon.edu.au/

Questacon is Australia's National Science and Technology Centre. A lot of thought has been put into the design on the centre to make it educational and fun. Mini Q is for (I think) under-6's but there is also plenty of other activities for older children.

If you are thinking of a water play area, you should really look at Questacon. It is clever in that there are lots of activities, but children don't really get all that wet !

But water play is just one of the many activities, there is also a pretend bakery (complete with plastic food, money, cash register, ovens), service station, vet, baby area, building area (complete with hard hats, cute), climbing frame, space ship, underwater world, and more I'm sure I can't remember.

Please come back and tell us when you are set up, sounds like it will be worth a trip to Macau.

[MeowMeow]

This is BEST children's activity center I've ever been.

It's the Children's Museum of Taipei.

http://www.cmot.com.tw/E-Files/about.html


Really wish Hong Kong has something similiar @-@

[Boris the Good]

Thanks to Jane and MeowMeow. I will look carefully at the links.

[lolly]

I've been to a children's museum in california that have a small merry go round. They also have a real life sized bus for kids. Miniature train would be terrific...if you have the room. I also see a lot of mini-supermarkets w/ checkouts at few childrens museum.