Storyplay City Week 3
Undersea Convention
Welcome to the Porridge & Play Online blog Storyplay City edition, where we share the stories of all the adventures
we’ve had during our virtual play sessions on Zoom! Get in touch to find out how to join.
With Lobster McLobster & Flippity the Clownfish!
Welcome to the 2021 Sea Creatures & Monsters Convention! This year we have the most exciting mix of misfits and characters you have ever imagined!
This week was all about building CHARACTERS, and what fantastic characters we met at the Seawater Conventions of our three Storyplay City Groups!
Thursday
4th February 2021
We love to dance!
We love to sing!
We’re a cool gang Please let us in!
Meet Norman The Nar Whale & The Queen of Octopus!
And here are Piri Piranha who adores eating worms with her pals Phil The Octopus who is famous for his love of frogs and Big Fish Jessica who cannot stop eating ice-cream!
The Deep-Sea Diver Dude is here too accompanied by his best pal The Sea Monkey and we saw a troupe of dancing Sharks arriving earlier too.
What a fascinating group they are!
Look out for Red Whale, The Incredible Half Human Half Octopus Emma, the beautiful and sometimes scary Underwater Butterfly, The Swimming Mermaid and Mr. Starfish!
And…do you know the Funky Fish? Well, she’s here as well with The Fast Seahorse, The Stinging Jellyfish, The Funny Pinguin and the ever so sneaky Slippery Eel!
It is a full house this year at The Sea Creatures & Monsters Convention my dear readers and myself, Lobster McLobster and my gorgeous colleague Octavio Octopus are here to bring you the Underwater News and keep you up to speed with all things aquatic!
There are rumours of an exciting Magic Ball underwater adventure involving a Sea Castle guarded by an art-loving guard who asks for rhymes and dances to let visitors in…We are also catching wind about a Donut Maker who has run out of flavours and needs some inspiration!
We shall report back with more details on all these stories and some images to illustrate them too as soon as we start getting them in… STAY TUNED!!!
Lobster McLobster & Octavio Octopus 🦞 🐙
Wednesday
3rd February 2021
‘Hello and welcome to the first Seawater Convention of 2021!! I’m Lobster MacLobster, this is my colleague Flippity the Clownfish, it’s fantastic to be here with a whole selection of underwater characters!!’
First of all we met Dara, ‘My name is the Beautiful Creature! My favourite food is crepes and chocolate! I live in a pink cottage house, under the sea!’
Then we met Emma the Fifi Starfish!! ‘My favourite food is apples and I live under the water with my mum, Christelle Seahorse, who’s favourite food is FuFu!!’
Lily introduced herself next ‘Hello, I am Lily the Sea Creature Diver! Now I may just look like a diver but I’m actually a sea creature diver! My snorkel isn’t actually a snorkel it’s actually a unicorn’s horn!!’
Junior was no other than the Shark King, dressed in a golden robe! His favourite food is meat and he lives under the sea with his dad the Octopus!!
Finally we met Brown the Brown Dog, who likes to eat bread and tea and lives in an underwater park!
Suddenly Mr Octopus discovered a golden shiny Magic Ball and we went on the most magical adventure! Meeting the Sea Queen, eating the windows of a candy house, and flying through the ocean on the back of a seahorse!! Wowee!
Saturday
6th February 2021
‘People of Atlantis, you are not so lost for we have found you! And we can help you to get to the Upside-Down Underwater Treasure!’
This year’s attendees to the world-famous Sea Creatures Convention had no idea that they were going to do way more than Meet and Greet and eat aquatic canapes…
Octavio Octopus & Lobster McLobster were in place to welcome every single fabulous creature coming to the Convention and it has to be said that they were both particularly excited about the fantastic mix of participants!
Gladius Swordfish & Glimmer Bottlenose, Shark The Shark, The Mysterious Blue Whales and Esme Mermaid are seasoned sea creatures that come every year and were in stupendous form.
New to the scene were Bababah Swordfish and Alina The Mermaid, Lily Sea Horse and Jellyfish of The Cave, Cristal Sparkles the mermaid and her unicorn and The Underwater Princess & her Crocodile!
But what nobody saw coming was that this year 2021 we were going to receive the visit of Olivia The Fairy of The Underwater Kingdom, The Swordfish Twins & The Queen of the Sea herself!!! WOW.
Late to the party were Crocus The Blue Croc, Sting Ray & Bad Boy Octopus and The Fish Trio but better to arrive late than never, eh?.
What fantastic characters!
‘My name is Goldie the Mermaid, I like to eat ice cream and I live in a magical kingdom under the sea that has unicorns and Narwhales!’ Erin, 8
On Wednesday, we also met…
- Tia the Mermaid, who lives in a rainbow and whose favourite food is ice cream!
- Imre was Creature the No Face!
- Murshidat lived in a cave and ate bananas…
- Erin was next, wearing a fantastic pair of sunglasses
- Adesayo was Superstar Shark who had socks instead of hands and liked to eat fish!
- And Aroush was Fishy the Soccer Player and had a HUGE bouncy ball!
We could write a whole book of stories about the adventures of these characters! I wonder if you’d like to write one?
The Upside-Down Treasure!
All was grand and pretty relaxed at the Saturday Convention until Octavio noticed a glowing little ball and….
‘Magic Ball, Magic Ball take us where we want to go!’
All the creatures big & small were by magic transported to Atlantis exactly at the time where a very important meeting was going on. The people of Atlantis had come together to work out how they could get hold of The Upside-Down treasure.
Thanks to the map we found we could get to the gates of Atlantis where Crabby The Guard makes sure that only those worthy of it can get through by asking everyone to strike their very best pose!
After some phenomenal poses we were in so we climbed up to the North and sideways went East, we then raced to the West and finally got there!
‘We know how to get The Upside Down Treasure, just do as we do!’
‘Run & run again in circles on the spot
You may get dizzy, you may feel wrong
But you will drill a hole!’
Floating up there the Upside-Down Treasure lay and of course instead of picking it up we all reached and picked down the riches of one of the most famous lost treasures EVER!
Outdoor Play Challenges!
Getting outside is good for our bodies and good for our minds!
You don’t need anything special to do, just getting outdoors to play, run around, explore and breathe in the fresh air is so good for us.
This week we challenge you to…
Play outside with SOUNDS! #2
Iona found a tree orchestra when she went Exploring with Jack. What can you hear? Can you make any sounds by touching the trees or the ground?
Apalam Chapalam
Apalam Chapalam is a traveling story channel for children aged 6 – 14, created by a community of storytellers in India! Virginia met the creators last week at a meeting of the International Play Association.
Jerry Pinto is one of Apalam Chapalam’s favourite authors and poets. He wrote this brilliant poem especially for all the little monkeys who are stuck at home! He has a secret trick that works wonders for him when he’s all cooped up and today he wants to share it with all of you…
Virginia at IPA Webinar
Last week Licketyspit Artistic Director and CEO Virginia spoke at an International Play Association webinar on Play in the Time of Crisis. People interested in play from all over the world were fascinated to hear all about Big Porridge & Play Online! And we heard about some other cool play projects in Portugal, India and Scotland!
