Saturday 19th June 2021

8 brilliant Storyplay Champions led a session for 7 brand new families as part of Refugee Festival Scotland – sharing their play culture!

The Storyplay Champions planned the session with Taz & Ruby at consultation and prep sessions. During Thursday’s prep, Storyplay Champions Mahek, Emmanuel, Felicia, Agyei, Gyan and Princess were fabulously creative working through the plan. We also had our wonderful Parent Storyplay Champion, Lawon, Princess’s Mum, supporting the session.

At the start, our Storyplay Champions had mixed emotions among the group, with some of us super excited about sharing our games and the way we play together but others among us a little bit worried. Emmanuel put his point across excellently, saying “it’s a bit scary, but I’ll give it a shot.” And give it a shot they all did! Before you knew it our super Storyplay champions gave amazing speeches and lead the warm-up and games so well that we were filled with confidence & excitement for Saturday!

We could not wait to introduce 8 new families to the Licketyspit community. As expected, our Storyplay Champions did an excellent job so naturally so that the Saturday session started strongly.  It was amazing to see Mahek lead the Hello Freeze and explaining how we start our sessions.  She them supported Andre to teach Grandma Grandma before confidently leading the group in a repeat of the whole song! 👵

We could not be prouder of how well our play champion Emmanuel explained to the rest of the families what we do at Licketyspit and how we play, welcoming everyone and making both the new and existing families feel welcome. 🤗

Felicia expertly led the dancing warm-up and stretch with such energy and enthusiasm that everyone could not help but join in and take turns to offer different dance moves to the great music chosen by the children. Felicia was thrilled to lead the dance! 🎶

Funky Chicken was a real hit, introduced by Areeb and Sarim who led the first two animals. We got to hear from everyone, including all the new families -Raajaab gave us the Happy Bunny, Genesis gave us the Funny Chicken, Rahik the Funny sheep. Gyan and Agyie joined and did a brilliant Dying Fly to finish which was hilarious! 🪰

Dressing Up, Rocket Ships & Our Lickety Band

Princess introduced Lickety Dressing-Up showing us how to make everyday items into new and exciting costume ideas – turning her pillow into a big tummy as an example. Then everyone dressed up brilliantly along to the music, becoming incredible princesses, ninjas, rap stars, superheroes, and many other spectacular characters living in wonderful places and eating all sorts of things. Arishyan’s character lived in a rocket – so we all climbed on board and it blasted us off to space…..and back again – just in time for drum-making.

Taking what we’d learned from our Ceilidh session with Amy & Adie, Felicia inspired us with her Shaker. Then everyone made instruments out of things we found around the house, like leftover boxes and a spoon, to make a band! Mahek showed how to make a shaker using rice and a plastic tub. Emmanuel made a drum using a cardboard box & wooden spoons. We created a beat with our array of home-made instruments and sang Grandma Grandma again as the Lickety Band! 🥁

Emmanuel, Mahek and Princess introduced Reflective drawing, explaining why and how we do it. And everyone drew & shared fantastic drawings in the Lickety Art Gallery.

We described how we felt, which games we liked and what we remembered about the session. The Storyplay Champions lead us in the Magic Clap, teaching the new families how to do it at exactly the same moment!

What a session!

We were so proud of our Storyplay Champions and how well they led this session. Big congratulations and thanks to them all! We may not have all been confident at the start, but we certainly all were by the end. Everyone was beaming with joy with Princess expressing gleefully how we felt at the end saying, “I felt happy and excited because I meet new people and I was very, very happy to be a play champion.” What a wonderful speeches and two more fantastic raps from Aygie and Gyan!

The session had a lovely atmosphere, with children hosting,  being hosted by and welcomed by children. There was a fantastic focus and a high level of participation. There was excitement and interest from the children running it!

The new families were enthralled! The children leading were  very proud of themselves, confident and excited. I am proud to have been a part of this wonderful child led session and well done all!

By the Andre, Virginia, Iona & the Storyplay Champion Children! 🎈