Week 7: Sticky honey, speaking in Bee, and dancing on TV!

Welcome to the Big Porridge & Play blog, where we share the stories of the adventures we’ve had during our virtual play sessions on Zoom. If you’d like to join in with our open session on Saturday mornings at 10am, all you need to do is either email us at cfn@licketyspit.com, text us at 07413 800 342, or sign up using this form. Everyone’s welcome, and we’d love to see you!

Our next session is on Saturday 11 July. After that, we’ll have a short break for a couple of weeks before returning at the start of August. Please do join the Children and Families Network (by emailing, texting or signing up, as above) if you’d like to be kept up to date with all the relevant news.

Another brilliant and energetic Big Porridge & Play Online session

Monday 6 July

We were treated to a brilliant and energetic Big Porridge & Play Online session on Saturday 4 July. We were joined by some new families, and it’s been great watching this group grow in size and in confidence.

Warming up

Taz kicked off the session with a song about her Grandma! This is a great song to sing with your friends and family at home.

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Grandma, Grandma, sick in bed
She sent for the Doctor and the Doctor said…

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Then we all got very messy and mucky in Mucky Brew! We started with cracking an egg over our head, then we peeled a pineapple, chopped it up and we stuck the bits of pineapple all over our faces! Iona got us to pick up a smelly sock and wear it like a hat, and there was a big jar of honey which we smeared all over ourselves too!

Abdal handed out some slime which we put in our hair, and Felicia got us to pour orange juice all over our heads! Precious and Donald then handed out some hot chocolate which dripped all the way down to our toes! Lawand then got us to rub ice cream all over our legs. Toby and Bimbo added jelly to the mix and we spread it all over our faces! To finish off our very mucky brew, Meerab handed out super glue and doughnuts, and we stuck them on our eyes! It was definitely time to get in the shower!

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Mucky me, mucky you
Mucky, mucky, mucky brew!

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Playing games – Monster’s Footsteps

After we all took a shower and got nice and warm and dry in the dryer, we spent a few moments dressing up as monsters in preparation for the game Monster’s Footsteps! What fantastic dressing up we saw in this session – everyone brought some creative ideas and thought up exciting ways to wear their costumes!

What a treat for the game! We started this game with the two grannies, Munir and Saliha. We also met Granny Zainab with her walking stick and then we were introduced to Granny Toby who lives in a small green cottage just at the edge of the forest! All these grannies loved telling us about their favourite breakfast meal… We also saw lots of wonderful, unusual and mysterious trees in the forest! I’m sure we saw some of them moving…

Travelling with the Magic Ball

On Iona’s walk through the forest she saw an orange ball hidden on the forest floor. As she passed it to Taz we all realised… it was the magic ball!

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Magic ball, magic ball, take us where want to go
Ohhhhhhhooooohhhhh!

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We arrived somewhere very sticky and very sweet – we’d landed inside a bee hive! Abdal then spotted the bees coming towards us and then appearing from deep in the hive! It was the Queen Bee!

The Queen Bee taught us how to say our names in Bee language and told us that when you try the honey it always tastes different to whoever tries it! Adesayo’s tasted like mushrooms and Olapeju’s tasted like the sweetest honey she’s ever tasted! The Queen told us to move our arms and as if by magic the honey started to stick to us. We had made our own honey! Taz then took the plunge and jumped down the honey slide – headfirst!

As we found our way to the bottom of the slide, we weren’t sure where we were, but we had to get to it quickly as the director of the famous Saturday Night TV show needed us to perform live as her dance group. Yumna led us through our warm-up before the choreographer arrived and taught us the dance moves for the live show! What incredible dance moves from this group, some of us couldn’t stop dancing!

Dyanesh and Meerab gave us the directions to get back to the Magic Ball, which included a flying unicorn, and we got in, sang the magic words and we arrived back in our homes safe and sound.

What an adventure we went on! We also received some fantastic drawings of our adventures for the Licketyspit Art Gallery – remember, you can send us your drawings, videos, and anything else you’re creating at home by emailing cfn@licketyspit.com – or joining us on Facebook. Taz, Iona, Ruby, Virginia and myself are really excited for our next session this Saturday (11 July). If it’s full of your creative ideas like it was this week, then we’ll be in for a treat!

Jack

Just a few pictures from this week’s session…

Have you heard the good news?

Lickety Activity Films: the final episodes!

This week, Taz, Jack and Iona shared their final episodes in the series. As with the others, we were all in for a real treat as they shared new ideas of things to prepare in the kitchen, places to explore in our own homes, and things to make from objects you’ve probably got lying around.

🍏 🍌 🍫 In Episode 6 of Cooking with Taz, the focus was on delicious fresh fruit again, but this time we transformed it by baking it in the oven. It was fascinating to discover what happens when you put apples and bananas in the oven with a little bit of sweetness from sugar, or chocolate. You’ll need to use a knife for this one, so definitely one to do together as a family with grown-ups on hand!

🏴󠁧󠁢󠁳󠁣󠁴󠁿 🏰 🐉 In Episode 6 of Exploring with Jack, Jack showed us where some of the most beautiful scenery of the world can be found – and we didn’t have to leave Scotland! Yes, using his magic map, he took us to the Scottish Highlands, which are just a train or a bus ride away from Glasgow, and have fantastic things to see – ancient castles, the tallest mountains in the UK, hairy Highland cows, and a quite famous loch-dwelling monster…

🦉 🥚 🖍️ In Episode 6 of Making with Iona, she introduced us to her funky new friend, Ollie the Owl – who she’s made only that morning using an egg box! Watch the video to find out how to make your own owls using an egg box, some bottle tops for eyes, and some crayons or anything else you’d like to use to decorate your new pals and make them really unique. It’s such good fun!

All our videos are made for you to follow along with at home – why not have a go?