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. Did you know that you can make a monster out of just about anything? A bottle cap can make a teeny tiny monster! A wooden spoon can make a super cool medium size monster! A cushion or a mop can make a brilliant really huge monster!! For our final week we we were joined by the brilliant Catherine Lindow, an illustrator and librarian who led a workshop on all things MONSTERS!!! Well… it looks like we have come to the end of this block of Story Play City & Family Art Voyage! And what an adventure it has been! A completely brilliant 9 WEEKS of playing, creativity, stories and fun! We worked FAST and ROUGH in this workshop, leaping around to find our objects as soon as we heard the MONSTER FOOTSTEPS STOMP!!! So instead of dressing up ourselves, Catherine taught us how to dress up our objects, and turn them into wonderful monsters!! Princess used a rubber and some tissue! Temi & Fuad stuck pencils into potatoes! Amir made a snake monster out of foam and tape! Iona made a tiny [...]

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 flew with the Hawk over the whole world!   We met the peacock, the robin and the golden bird!   We told wee Hoolet just to be himself!   And we hoot hoot hooted like owls ourselves! This week we were welcomed into Hamish’s Hoose for a nice wee time! And what an AMAZING time we had! We learnt the ancient story of the Hoolet, which is the Scots word for an OWL. In the story the wee owl grows into a beautiful bird, and learns that being beautiful is just about being who you are! You all had fantastic ideas throughout the story of the Hoolet!! YOUR IDEAS FOR THE STORY Our Adventures with the Hoolit ‘I think he should maybe be happy about himself the way he was born because everyone’s born different and not ugly.’ ‘The hawk might see trees but they might look like bushes because you can’t see the tree trunks.’ ‘They could tell Hoolit he was being a bit mean and say sorry or something?’ ‘They [...]

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. What you need for coffee painting: Paper 1 teaspoon of instant coffee  Two cups for mixing the paint Cold water 1 paintbrush or cotton earbud for painting 1 candle Have you ever realised that it’s possible to make paint out of coffee?! Paint that is light and dark and runny and thick and really fun to make! Well, this week we learnt how to do just that! We were joined by the wonderful artist, Jaz, for our fourth week of Family Art Voyage.  Jaz has been painting with coffee for a long time, and has discovered how easy it is to make a brilliant picture! Our Stories ‘So there was a snake in the beach and a dragon fly flying around and a tornado and there was snow and snow coming down on the beach!’ ‘There’s a dog on the street and a tree and its walking under the tree going to the park!’  ‘The cat went back to the beach and they met his friend and were sunbathing on the beach and they [...]

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. 19th, 20th and 21st October We had a fantastic third week of Family Art Voyage with our guest artist Ali Maclaurin who taught us how to make our own mini worlds using whatever we could find around our house… or in our garden!  Ali read us a poem called ‘The Island’ by A. A. Milne which made us think about what our own mini world might be like.. What colours would we see? What could we smell? What could we hear? What did the ground feel like? What animals could would live there? With all of these brilliant ideas and images in our heads, we set to work to MAKE our mini worlds! And what brilliant worlds they were! With Ali to fire our imaginations we got to creating our own Mini worlds! Using cardboard, glue, paint and colour we managed to create and explore our very own Mini Worlds. Ali helped us to unlock all the potential our Mini worlds had to offer and what worlds they are! We used... Upside down yoghurt pots make wonderful hills! Pencils stuck in lumps [...]

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. 6th, 7th, 9th October We had a fantastic second week of Family Art Voyage with our guest artist Caitlin Forbes who joined us on zoom from Caithness, in the north of Scotland. We learned all about Musical Theatre in her workshop all about chefs! First of all we had to come up with our chef CHARACTER! What did our chef look like? What kind of food did we cook? What was our personality like?  We met many chefs like ‘Chef Bunny Bun who was lovely and made cakes!’  Then we were ready to play a game of ‘YES CHEF!’ In this game we took turns being the ‘head chef’ who gave instructions to everyone else in their kitchen!  'Yes Chef' Game ‘Clean the kitchen!’ ‘Stir the Soup!’ ‘Chop the peppers!’  ‘Sweep the floor!’ After ‘YES CHEF,’ we used chefs instructions and tasks to come up with a dance routine! Caitlin taught us that anyone can make up a dance just by thinking of actions. For example: if the action is [...]

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. I love my ice-cream I love my ice-cubes (Injeela) sugar and butter! I love my school, I love my life and I love everyone at Licketyspit! (Emmanuel) sugar and butter! ‘LET’S ALL PLAY THE DRUM, LET’S PLAY THE DRUM!’ We had such a FANTASTIC time at last week’s sessions with Thomas and Adie. They joined us on Wednesday, Thursday and Saturday for the most brilliant and exciting workshops where we learnt a Kpanlogo drumming rhythm, some Ghanaian dancing and the ‘Sugar & Butter’ song! Thomas and Adie had great big Djembe drums from Ghana, but they told us that to learn drumming all you need is a mixing bowl or cooking pot from your kitchen! Everyone made brilliant drums from bowls, Tupperware boxes, and even great big yoghurt pots! Thomas showed us how to hold our bowls between our knees and which parts of our hands to use to make different sounds. Then we learnt a Kpanlogo’ rhythm which went along with these words: ‘LET’S ALL PLAY THE DRUM, LET’S PLAY THE DRUM!’ We them learnt a whole dance routine [...]