Big Porridge & Play Week 5
Expert characters!
Welcome to the Porridge & Play Online blog, 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.
We are the experts!
Are you really very good at tying your laces? Or, maybe it’s making sandwiches? Or, maybe you’re great at jumping to the moon and back?! This week we discovered that we were all experts at something – a whole team of experts! One thing that all children are experts at is playing, of course, so for our final Porridge & Play Online of this block we used our skills to dress up as characters that were experts at something, and to use our imaginations – and the Magic Ball – to dream up an amazing adventure…
Thursday
20th May 2021
We had a great time with the Thursday gang of experts letting our imaginations run wild by dressing up as characters who were all an expert at something…
🍞 💇 🗺️ Taz became Bill who lives on a hill and is an expert at hopping on one leg and Andre was Phil who lives in a mill and is an expert at making bread. Agyei became Phil who lives down the hill and is an expert at cutting hair! Azzan became an expert at software engineering, Ayra at exploring and Eshal was a science expert.
💅🏃♀️ 🐇 Felicia turned into Yoyo the expert at nail designs and Ameen became Hip who lives in a tip and is brilliant at running fast on the spot. Shullamite transformed into Honey who is an expert at making money, Ramtoulah and Janaiba were experts at flying, Abdullah an expert at far out jumping and Emmanuel’s expertise was chasing hares!
Then, expert at Magic Ball Amir got his special Magic Ball set up and all the experts stepped inside and whoosh!
Emmanuel the hare chasing expert opened the zip and told us that we had landed in a busy city market full of stalls and people and vegetables and baskets and balls and toilet paper!
💬 ‘Hey! Can you hear that?’
We followed the sweet music and arrived at the door of a Jazz Club but we could only be allowed in if we were experts at playing an instrument… Well, luckily Shullamite, Simon and Jessica were experts at playing the 🎸 guitar, 🥁 drums and 🎹 piano and it turned out we were all expert musicians!
We played so beautifully that we got spotted by a music producer who was looking for experts for his next production inside a video game…
💬 ‘Though you would need a software engineering expert to get you inside the video game…’
‘Azaan! This is your moment!’
Using his expertise, Azaan got us all inside the video game and we 🤸♂️ jumped and climbed and dodged all sorts of obstacles so impressively that the music producer wished he had some of our brilliant expertises.
💬 ‘Well, we can show you what we are all expert at – to the sound of Felicia’s ukulele!’
But, not long after we had started demonstrating our expert skills to Felicia’s music we heard a warning about 🐘 a stampede of video game elephants heading our way! RUN!!!!
💬 ‘That was a narrow escape from the chasing elephants! But how will we get back to the Magic Ball?’
Our far out jumping expert Abdullah showed us how to master a far out jump and off we took into the sky and landed exactly at where the Magic Ball was waiting to get us all back home after our phenomenal adventure!
From the Thursday Gang, Andre, Iona & Taz 🎈
Wednesday
19th May 2021
‘I’m the rabbit expert at making people laugh!’ Lily
‘I am an expert at selling hats!’ Imre
‘My name is the Scotsman and my expertise is eating Haggis!’ Magnus
‘I am Lady Mush and I’m an expert at perfuming people and making new clothes for them!’ Fiire
A WHOLE GROUP OF EXPERTS! A whole group of Wednesday experts got inside the Magic Ball to be experts all over the world…
We flew to the 🎨 Land of Painting where Junior, an expert at painting, suggested we paint everywhere and everything! The world turned red and orange, blue and green, one great big colourful canvas! Taz painted a door, but we needed an expert to open it…
Luckily, Faridah the 🐈 expert cat impersonator meowed her best meow and the door creaked open! Hooray! We stepped through the door into no other than 🧀 Yeet Land, a land made of cheese that stank of cheddar! Faridah the 🧚 Fairy God Mother appeared, desperate to see our expert skills! Music played and we all performed, from slow-motion dancing to cake baking, break-dancing to eyebrow raising, we were the experts of it all!
Taz introduced us to Bill who lives in a shoe, who is an expert at scratching people’s backs when they have an itch! We also met Andre who was an expert at flying, and there were 🧪 TWO experts at science – Mr Bigbrain (Osak) and Mr Smartypants (Osato)!
In the Funky Chicken we met Brown the Funky T-Rex! Murshidat’s Funky Cat danced with Lily’s Slippery Snake! Osato’s Snappy Crocodile chased Pemi’s Funky Lion! While Imre’s Weird Jellyfish wobbled all around!
Remember, you can become any character that you wish! Any time, any place, you could make a wish, and become a fish! A worried elephant, or a happy snail!
Thanks for a brilliant 5 weeks! See you soon for more playing!🥰
From the Wednesday Gang, Iona, Taz & Andre 🎈
Saturday
22nd May 2021
What would you do if you could assemble team of experts that were the very best at… lock picking, disappearing, cake making, book reading, boxing, drawing things that come to life, writing stories, rock climbing, eating food?
The Saturday Gang play experts know that there’s only one thing that can be done when you had such a group of pals with such incredible expertises…blow up a Magic Ball and go on an adventure!
🎼🎶
Magic Ball, Magic Ball take us where we want to go
Magic Ball, Magic Ball take us where we want to go
Magic Ball, Magic Ball take us where we want to go
WHOOOOOOOOOAAAAAAAAH!!!!!
🎼🎶
Nobody likes being 🐒 chased by a monkey the very second one lands on 🌴 Expert Jungle! We had to move fast and try and find an escape route.
💬 ‘Over here! There’s a cave! Oh no, it has a door and it is locked!’
🔑 Priscilla the lock-picking expert managed to open the tiny door and we all crawled into the cave through a narrow rocky corridor that became bigger and bigger to reveal the main chamber of the cave and… 🚀 an expert in Astrophysics!
💬 ‘I actually excel in Astrophysics… however, I don’t seem to remember how to play!’
A round of play-mime got the Astrophysics expert so inspired that he revealed to us an incredible truth… ‘this hole here is a ✨ portal to the Solar System. Followed me if you are up for an out of this world adventure!’ He jumped in and we all followed, and suddenly…
💬 ‘WOOOOOW WE ARE FLOATING…IN….SPACE…!’
We all agreed how incredibly relaxing the experience was, until we realised that we had relaxed a bit too much and we were now lost in space…
💬 ‘Fear not! Come to my Moon Castle and you’ll be welcome to use my very own teleporter’
🏰 The Little Man with The Castle in The Moon was so lovely and generous and we all got inside the tele-transporter and bumped into Andre who told us how the Magic Ball had burst and Anaya and Ayesha had been making a new one in the lab… but they were barricaded in by 🥕 a great big amount of food and they couldn’t come out of the lab!
💬 ‘This is a job for Cutie Pie the Food Eating Expert!’
Cutie Pie ate and ate and ate, opening a path for our new Magic Ball to roll out and get us back home!
HUZZAH FOR THE EXPERTS!!!
From the Saturday Gang, Andre, Jack & Taz 🎈
This week’s Lickety Gallery!
Making children’s rights real across Scotland workshop
We’re very excited to be involved in this online session by GCVS (Glasgow Council for the Voluntary Sector) discussing how we implement children’s rights in practice – along with members of our Children & Families Network!
Following the Scottish Government’s incorporation of the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child (UNCRC) into Scots Law, during the session we will hear from keynote speakers from Together Scotland and Children’s Parliament on a range of questions about how we can implement this. Licketyspit will then lead an interactive breakout session, alongside other services who have been working with engaging children and young people.
The session is for anyone who has a role in supporting children and young people to realise their rights when making decisions affecting them, whether you’re in the third sector or the statutory sector. Visit the event page to register or to find out more.
What’s next – outdoor play!
We’re very excited that in June we’ll be able to see some of our Children & Families Network members in person and play together outdoors! 🎉 🥳 We’ll be running sessions all across Glasgow in some of the 🌳 beautiful leafy green parks we can all access for free, including Tollcross Park, Linn Park, Elder Park and Glasgow Green. Look out for your email to sign up for one of these sessions!
Playing outdoors is great for our brains and our bodies… if you’re looking for ideas of all the things we can do outside, why not try some of our Outdoor Play Challenge videos?
