A Playtime Excursion

It's excursion time! 

All belted in and ready to go!

One of the things I love about the kids' school is that they make the effort to take the kids on plenty of excursions. There is a theatre trip every term, and an outdoor excursion just about every term too, for some out-of-the-classroom learning.

This term, the whole school made a trip out to watch 玲玲你好！(Hello Ling) as part of their Chinese Cultural Month activities. I'd actually brought Meips to watch this play in English last year, but I thought it might be interesting for her to catch it in Chinese, and for me to see how they compare. Besides, it was to be the little miss' first excursion! It would have been a pity for her to miss it. Parents were welcome on his trip so I decided to accompany my little girl for the morning.

She was terribly excited about the bus ride. That's not surprising, I guess! It gave her a thrill to be so high up and see over the tops of the vehicles driving alongside us. Her teacher also kept up a steady flow of Chinese songs as we travelled along and I was glad to finally be able to figure out what she's been singing at home! 

After the ride, it was time for the show. 

Nomi with her little friend A, obligingly posing for Mummy together.

Masks are fun!

玲玲你好！is a play about light. Like all Playtime plays, there is quite a bit of audience participation and repeating of key words, in this case, terms like 太阳，星星，种子， 影子.  Like I said, we've seen this in English before, and I felt that this Chinese version was better. The storyline was the same but the production was tighter. That said though I felt that it wasn't the most interactive play compared to some of the other Playtime performances we've been to.

Too bright! Need sunglasses!

Shadow Play!

I admit that I did feel a bit reluctant to give up my morning off to attend the play initially, but I didn't regret spending the time with my little girl. In fact, I just signed up for the Term 2's theatre trip! The children will be going to watch How To Catch A Star (based on the Oliver Jeffers book that Noey loves, incidentally) and I'm looking forward to that already.

Hello Ling (or 玲玲你好!) is part of a series of 4 plays, with Hello Paige, Hello Adam, and Hello Yasmin being the other three. They explore the themes of light, sound, movement and growth respectively. Personally I've found these Playtime performances to be very suitable for the little ones. Their target audience is between 2-4 years. They engage the children by having lots of singing, repetition, and getting the kids to be involved. You do have to sit on the floor so be mentally prepared! Hello Yasmin is currently running from 19 to 23 Feb. Tickets are priced at $15 each, or $50 for a package of 4 tickets, and are available at Sistic.