Welcome to the Big Porridge & Play Online blog, where we share the stories of all the adventures
we’ve had during our virtual play sessions on Zoom! See below for details of how to join.

For this week’s blog, Licketyspit actor-pedagogues Taz and Andre share some of their highlights from the action-packed Big Porridge & Play sessions.

Wednesday

👨 Our action-packed session kick-started with Busy Joe’s button-pushing story in the song HELLO, MY NAME IS JOE. This catchy tune had us all defying gravity while pushing buttons with our hands, legs, head and tongues!

💃 After welcoming everyone we had a fantastic Dance Warm-Up with toe-tapping Indian beats and let me tell you, some of the moves were outstanding and full of joy! Smiles all round!

🐔 A sharp round of FUNKY CHICKEN followed where we met a Speedy Crab, a Scary Dinosaur AND a Silly Dinosaur, a Beautiful Rabbit, a Scary Lion and even a Dancing Parrot!

🏴‍☠️ This week’s Dressing Up got us all grooving and transforming into a mean and not so mean Pirate Crew of Misfits with Zofia Pink Mustachio Pirate, Terrible Frankie, Nuo Xuan Pirate Queen, Lily Rose of the Ocean, Felicia Fluffy Pirate and Fierce Sayeh to name a few!

🚢 Naturally, Captain Taz got her bossy bandana on and shouted orders at everyone. “Scrub the deck! Climb that rigging!” It must be said that Awful & Lovely Captain Andre was a little nicer and got us all eating our grub or drinking our grog! One by one the mean Pirates had us all cleaning the ship and walking the plank several times, BUT – when the order “dig for treasure!” came along the motley crew could not hold their enthusiasm and the dig, dig, digging took us to TREASURE!

After an incredible adventure with the MAGIC BALL, we were ready to start our Reflective Drawing. The Licketyspit Art Gallery was as colourful and exuberant as the artists who produced stunning pictures about our adventures!

Taz 😊

Thursday

🍫 On Thursday, when we opened the zip after finding the MAGIC BALL we realised we’d landed in a very dark place. “Feel the walls”, said Virginia – and they were sticky! Marlo soon realised they were made of chocolate and sweeties, so we all ate a bit too much of those!

🌊 Then Virginia found what it looked a tunnel, and of course we all followed her in. It got smaller and smaller and smaller…ARGH! We were falling and suddenly there we were inside a cave underneath the sea!

🐙 “I can see an octopus! What can you see Sanjay?” But there was no sign of Sanjay. Instead, a funky-looking octopus started speaking to us in Octopus language – and Gyan and Agyei saved the day as they are fluent in Octopus!

🏴‍☠️ After going towards a bright light that we could see ahead of us, we entered a huge room full of lights, music, and PIRATES having a party! We had a quick pirate sword fight then Sanjay realised we were standing on slime. We couldn’t move! In fact, we were sinking!

🐉 Eshal recommended holding to a big rock and pull so we could get out and as we were rescuing ourselves from the slime, Mahek spotted treasure – being guarded by a great big dragon! After tickling the dragon with our slime-covered swords we found a necklace of giant pearls, a sapphire cape, diamonds and a key!

🗝️ “Hello? Hello? Did someone find a key?”, a lovely old man was asking. ‘It’s the key for my underwater castle you see”. Mahek handed the key and we asked if we could visit his underwater castle – but it turned out we needed to make up an Underwater Dance before we could do so! 

What an adventure! Whilst we were doing our Reflective Drawings, we all agreed that it had been another fabulous afternoon getting together and enjoying the magic power of our imaginations!

Taz 😊

Saturday

I really enjoyed seeing everyone for the open session on Saturday. Thanks to a whopping 35 families taking part, it was funny, cheery, and full of ideas!

👵  Starting with GRANDMA GRANDMA was an absolute delight as so many faces lit up as we sang the song and did the actions with lots of groovy movement throughout. We took our dancing to the next level with our warm-up – I loved seeing all the flossing in the screens as well as the other equally brilliant dance moves you all led!

🌈 We then said hello to everyone and played our new game OPEN MY BOX – which had a lot of amazing reactions from everyone to what was inside. From Taiwo and Ope’s Blue Car that we got to drive in, and Abdal and Priscilla’s Rainbow Slide which we got to play on slipping and sliding into a rainbow adventure, everyone’s suggestions were so active and imaginative.

🐺 I loved then seeing everyone dressed as wonderful wildlife creatures for MR. WOLF. Lawand’s Mr Wolf and others were a delight, as the wolves and the forest animals played together so wonderfully as we built the world they lived in. 

🦖 Our MAGIC BALL trip was filled with adventure! We entered a dark dungeon, spotted a huge dinosaur who had been transformed by Evil Wizard Meerab, saved a princess who lived in a castle, flew into space, landed on the moon, met an alien, and even found a magic potion that managed to turn the Evil Wizard good!

🎵 Our reflective drawing was an absolute treat, only made better by having Iona with us in spirit as we played one of her songs. Her beautiful song inspired many rich drawings and some absolutely incredible writing from some participants, who even read them out to us. My highlight came at the end as I got to lead my first Magic Clap! 

Thank you, everyone, for being so wonderful.

Andre ✨

This week’s wonderful Reflective Drawings

WORKSHOP

A workshop with Adie Baako!

We are so excited that African dancer Adie Baako will be joining us at this week’s play sessions for a very special workshop of Ghanian dance and song, especially for the Licketyspit Children & Families Network! 🇬🇭🥁🎵

Adie grew up on the Atlantic coast in Ghana in a village with no electricity – imagine, a life without wi-fi and iPads! – so singing, drumming and dancing was often the best way to entertain yourself. Now a professional dancer, Adie shares his stories and music in these fun, energetic workshops, bringing the vibrant culture and colour of Ghana to Scotland, where he now lives. We can’t wait to share a session of 🎉 song, dance, stories and fun 🎉  with Adie, and our wonderful Children & Families Network!