SINGAPORE, 25 April 2026 – This June school holidays, Singapore Chinese Cultural Centre (SCCC) is proud to present Cultural Playground, its first ever Mandarin-led children’s festival. Designed for children below the age of 12, this inaugural festival aims to provide children the opportunity to engage with local Chinese culture and language through stories, music, and play in the form of theatre performances, workshops and more!
Held from 19 to 21 June 2026, Cultural Playground 2026 will feature a total of 16 programmes and one of the key highlights will be The Legend of Nezha puppetry performance by Paper Monkey Theatre, which will bring the legendary tale of Nezha to life through exquisitely handcrafted rod puppets. The puppetry performance will also feature a dragon dance, a dynamic live martial arts segment, original music by The Flame of the Forest and local musician Govin Tan, and a complementary hands-on workshop for children to learn the art of traditional Chinese rod puppetry as well as how to animate hand-crafted puppets.
Another key highlight of the festival will be the launch of the fourth edition of The Nursery Rhymes Project by The Theatre Practice. Based on the theme of “Imagine Our Songs”, the performance reimagines classic local Mandarin nursery rhymes such as Xiao Bai Chuan《小白船》and Mothers Are Best《世上只有妈妈好》 through music and interactive theatrical storytelling as a means of engaging children and nurturing their appreciation of the Chinese language from an early age.
Cultural Playground 2026 also offers multi-sensory music workshops for babies and toddlers aged 0 to 18 months. Anchored in the well-known children’s song Xiao Bai Chuan《小白船》and grounded in SonicPlay™, an evidence-based pedagogy, these workshops position listening as the foundation of learning, and sound as a primary medium for connection, cultural awareness, and meaning-making.
The festival also offers parent-child workshops such as:
Recognising the important role parents play in instilling interest and shaping their children’s appreciation for their mother tongue language, Cultural Playground 2026 also offers two free parental workshops where a curriculum specialist will share practical ways for parents to make learning Chinese fun and meaningful by weaving language-learning into everyday experiences.
SCCC Chief Executive Officer, Mr Alvin Tan, said: “Through the festival, we hope to spark an interest in local Chinese culture and language amongst young children, and encourage learning through play, hands-on activities and immersive experiences. We also hope that children and their parents would enjoy themselves and create lasting memories of their encounters with culture and language.”
Cultural Playground 2026 also offers a series of free storytelling sessions in collaboration with People’s Association on the history and traditions of Chingay, and fringe activities such as face-painting. For the full list of programmes, ticketing and registration details, please visit https://singaporen.sg/cp or download the event’s media kit here.
