I shared a while ago we’ve cut our living space and moved. Which also meant that prior to the move, we threw/ donated / recycled / left downstairs (for garang guni aunties and uncles of our previous neighbourhood to scour, hurhurhur) truckloads of stuff.

Boy, did we have A LOT of stuff. Toys and books and playsets and bath things that everyone has outgrown. Clothes that we would never wear. DVDs that we would never watch. STUFF that we would never use.

So the kids were feeling a little trodden by the month-long throwing out.

And it was nice to have the good folks from Friso come a-knockin’ our way last week, telling us they will be placing this right smack in the middle of our place. Which, of course, made the kids extremely thrilled. You mean, we can have new things to play with? was the first thing that crossed their mind.

Yes, apparently so. Thanks to Friso Singapore, who’s all very keen to get children to experience PLAY, Nat, our littlest, together with the older two kids, had a chance to play – and play a lot indeed – with the Friso Experiences Play Set, consisting of a Friso tent, a Friso slide with basketball and hoop (in blue or pink), a Friso storage box with 2 cushions and a green carpet à la astro turf (a rather big piece, I must say).

So this was how Nat played:

When the play set first arrived, Nat was stoked to see something he was familiar with outdoors but not indoors. So off to the slide he went. We laid out the artificial grass, put the slide with basketball hoop on top of it, and the small spongy green ball given was quickly exchanged for a real junior basketball (because, really, you’re talking about Nat here) and here, you see the pro at play:

The next day, I saw my older two join in the fun. Ben and Becks have been told that the slide is not suitable for older children and might not take their weight. But clearly, it became nevermind, Mom, we can get really creative, because it doesn’t mean we have to physically slide down a slide to have fun:

How creative are my kids? Oh, so very. They are always ‘inventing’ things like that. The slide with the chairs and stools in the house, plus pillows and wooden sticks from the tent have seen more than 5 combinations already to make some “super machines” since the play set came. I’m just waiting for them to turn the slide upside down and discover a whole new world.

A few days later, I heard a great deal of swooshing and whooshing in the living room, and when I headed out, I was tickled by what Nat was doing, completely with commentary F1 broadcast teams would be proud:

The pictures I took were posed versions with cars, obviously. When I spied him with my little eye without my camera, this boy was racing four cars at once.

That weekend, we also brought the tent to Grandma’s place to try “camping” out. Ok, I have to say that the tent is a tad small for 3 children, so…

So much for camping. They had fun, nonetheless, trying to make the tent work. I suspect if you throw them more rods and cloth, they might end up constructing a super tent big enough to fit the extended family, Grandma and Grandpa included.

So this was how the Kao kids did it with the Friso Play Set – play their own creative way!

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Friso wishes to encourage parents to experience more together by engaging in creative play with their little ones. From 1 September 2015 to 31 October 2015, parents who spend $350 on any Friso participating products at participating retailers will receive the Friso Experiences Play Set (worth $300). It will consist of a tent, a slide with a basketball hoop, 2 cushions, a storage box and a green carpet so that parents can bring the outdoors into their homes and experience more together with their child.

The participating Friso products included in this promotion are Frisomum, Friso Gold Cereal and Friso Gold 2, 3, 4. It excludes all infant formula for 0-6 months.

There will also be a special Friso Experience Play Zones at FairPrice outlets and Sheng Siong outlets. Parents are invited to take pictures with their little ones at the play zones. Friso ambassadors will be on-site to snap photos, print it out and present it in a Friso Photo frame to the participants during the weekends.

The outlets for the Play Zones are:

1. FP Xtra Jem Mall — 1 to 30 Sept
2. FP Xtra AMK Hub — 1 to 30 Sept
3. FP Xtra Sport Hub — 1 to 30 Sept
4. FP Xtra Nex Mall — 7 to 30 Sept
5. FP Xtra Jurong — 1 to 30 Sept
6. FP East Point — 14 to 30 Sep
7. Guardian Plus Takshimaya — 17 to 30 Sep
8. Guardian Compass Point (B1) — 17 to 30 Sept
9. Guardian Causeway Point (B3-4) —28 Sep to 4 Oct
10. Sheng Siong Woodlands 6A — 1 to 31 Oct
11. Sheng Siong Bedok 209 — 1 to 31 Oct

Find more details here: apps.facebook.com/frisoexperience or follow Friso on their FB Page for more info.

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“Play is a drive, a need, a brain-building must-do.” – Jeff A Johnson & Denita Dinger (Let them play: an early learning (un)curriculum)

Disclosure: We received the play set from Friso to play. The kids played. I watched. We bonded.  All opinions here are our own.