Glasgow, one year on: a Storyplay explosion!

2020-10-09T11:58:50+00:00

It’s been a year since we moved the Licketyspit office to Glasgow - and what a year it’s been. None of us could have predicted the tumultuous events that would affect everything and everyone; for the past six months, like all other arts organisations, the activities and goals we set out have been forced to shift and morph to fit our new reality. So, we were delighted when one of the parents in our Children & Families Network happily remarked that she’d noticed “an explosion” in Licketyspit activity since we moved here. It looks like this is recognised elsewhere too, as we have just been granted funding from the Glasgow Communities Fund for our Storyplay City project! So, we thought it would be good to step back and reflect on that “explosion” ourselves. Our Storyplay Residencies and Big Porridge & Play intergenerational play sessions, focus on energetic, face-to-face imaginary play, often within large groups of families from different parts of the city, which with the arrival of the pandemic had to stop! But with difficulties come opportunities: we’ve learnt new ways of playing, new ways of conducting events remotely, new ways of connecting with children and families when we can’t be physically near each other, and new ways of finding new families to join our vibrant Families Network community.  A new home We had been [...]

Glasgow, one year on: a Storyplay explosion!2020-10-09T11:58:50+00:00

Our latest play session – with 37 FAMILIES!

2021-07-02T09:42:58+00:00

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. 3 October 2020 Saturday! We thought it was last week... but this Saturday really was our BIGGEST SESSION EVER! 37 families joined us for a brilliant and very exciting morning! In the FUNKY CHICKEN we all came up with brilliant animals! Michris’s Funky Dog 🐕 , Leslie’s Dying Fly, Ala and Ruta’s Naughty Seagull, Bence and Imre’s Flopping Fish 🐠 , Simmi’s Angry Bear 🐻 , Amanda’s Crazy Horse 🐴 , Priscilla’s Scary Dog 🐶 , Amir and Ameen’s Angry Cat 🐱 , Arshyian and Injeela’s Jumpy Monkey 🐵 , Meerab’s Angry Elephant 🐘 , Marvellous’s Funny Wolf 🐺  and Iona’s Delicious Donkey! Phew! We had an especially brilliant moment when Erin and Ethan gave us a verse of the Funky Chicken in Shona language from Zimbabwe! 🇿🇼 After singing JELLY ON HIS HEAD, we all came up with our own characters! Anaya and Ayesha went to bed with pyjamas on their heads! Adesire told us about a Fairy who went to bed with oranges in her mouth! Abdulmateen went to bed with meatballs on his head! Sayeh introduced us to Rebecca who went to [...]

Our latest play session – with 37 FAMILIES!2021-07-02T09:42:58+00:00

Witchy brews, fruit fairies and ghost trains!

2021-07-02T09:43:49+00:00

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. Wednesday! 23 September 2020 Thank you to the 12 families in Ruchill and Milton who joined us for our final Wednesday session of the month! We kicked things off with our favourite warm ups, where we got covered in chocolate ice cream, mud, cornflakes and ice lollies in MUCKY BREW then washed it all off with the WASHING SONG. 🧙‍♀️🥤☠️ Then something very exciting happened - we dressed up as witches for WITCHES FINGERS! Amanda, Glory, Esther, Muiz, Muizameel, Muqseen and Murshidat were all witches drinking witchy bottles of… orange juice, apple juice, coke, water, paint and paper! But then, we all drank a bottle of poison! Oh no! 🍵🥕🕷️ Witches Iona and Sanjay then let everyone try their yummy witchy soup. Iona was cooking hers with peas, carrots and spiders, but when she had a try, she found something very unexpected - the MAGIC BALL! 🐳 👑 🐉  So we blew it up, and off we went - under the sea, where we met lots of fish, a big pink shark and a lovely friendly whale; to a magic kingdom ruled by King Michris [...]

Witchy brews, fruit fairies and ghost trains!2021-07-02T09:43:49+00:00

All the things we can still do while we’re at home!

2021-07-02T09:44:09+00:00

As the restrictions around coronavirus continue, we know that many families may be feeling frustrated, stressed, or worried. We know it's a difficult time, so we wanted to remind you of all the things we CAN still do at the moment, even when we might not be able to play with all of our friends or family. There are so many ways to keep using our imagination and creativity at home! Reading, writing, making, dancing, singing, drawing... and PLAYING! 🎈🎉✨ Get cooking, exploring and making! When the lockdown first started, we made some Lickety Activity Films which were specially designed to show you simple, fun, creative and cheap activities that you could do at home as a family - alongside your friendly Lickety hosts! Taz, Jack and Iona each guide you through a fun activity or on a special adventure - which you can follow along with at home! You can either watch and do the activities along with us, or use them to inspire your own ideas! Why not... 🥘  Think of another recipe you could cook with the same ingredients, after watching Cooking with Taz? 🍅  Research one of the ingredients online and find out more about it? 🍋  Plant a tree using the seeds from some fruit, after making a delicious fruit salad or zingy lemonade? 🗺️ Close your eyes, take out your [...]

All the things we can still do while we’re at home!2021-07-02T09:44:09+00:00

Spooky woods, a Wolf Queen, and a rainbow lake!

2021-07-02T09:43:59+00:00

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. WOW!!! We had the biggest Saturday session EVER this week, with 27 families and 81 participants! And what a brilliant session it was - featuring funny bunnies and grumpy squirrels, a spooky wood, Mr. Wolf and a magic seed! Warming up 🐠🐶We started off with our brand new WARM UP, which is filled with animals inspired by you! 🎵 Can you Flip? Like the Fortunate Fish? Who is making a wish To Dance like the Dizzy Dog?🎶 A game of Spooky Funky Chicken! 🐔 🦁 🐿️ We then delved deep into a spooky wood where we came up with all kinds of animals for a game of FUNKY CHICKEN! We had: Felicia’s Funny Bunny, Tobiloba’s Scary Dragon, Frankey’s Funny Pig, Ayaan’s Funky Chicken, Loraine’s Angry Snake, Esther Glory and Goodness’s Scary Crocodile, Adesayo’s Angry Gorilla, Princess’s Angry Lion, Marvellous’s Grumpy Squirrel, Sylvia’s Cheeky Monkey, Skye & Marlo’s Funny Fox, Meerab’s Angry Caterpillar, Muizameel’s Angry Dinosaur and Anaya and Ayesha’s Naughty Seagull! Wowee! Imagine all of these animals popping out from behind a tree in the spooky wood - eeek! So we just had to dress [...]

Spooky woods, a Wolf Queen, and a rainbow lake!2021-07-02T09:43:59+00:00

Chocolate fountains, angry animals, and letters to our loves!

2021-07-02T09:44:17+00:00

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. Wednesday! 9 September 2020 We had a lovely, relaxed and cheery session on Wednesday with four brilliant families. There was some fantastic dressing up - Noor with funky sunglasses, Ryan with a towel on his head and Gabby wearing a pillow as a hat! We also had an absolutely marvellous adventure with the Magic Ball, including... 🥪 landing inside a lunchbox, squished against an enormous sandwich! 🍫 eating some chocolate that made us grow into giants and bursting out… into a computer! 💻 meeting a computer man who’d been living inside the computer for years - thankfully Emmanuel knew how to talk to him in Computer Language, and found out we needed to escape quickly! 🏎️ we escaped by playing a computer game, driving around in colourful cars... ⛲...until Gabby found a chocolate slide and we slid down it into a chocolate fountain! Thursday! 10 September 2020 There were so many highlights from Thursday's smaller session, too! As well as I SENT A LETTER TO MY LOVE and a most [...]

Chocolate fountains, angry animals, and letters to our loves!2021-07-02T09:44:17+00:00

How YOU can help shape a revolution in children’s rights!

2020-09-14T12:58:15+00:00

Why are we so excited? Last week, something happened which made us very happy here at Licketyspit! In a big document outlining their plans for the next year the Scottish Government promised to deliver “a revolution in children’s rights” - how exciting does that sound?! They plan to do this by incorporating a major international law protecting the rights of children into Scottish law. It’s called the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child, which is a bit of a mouthful, but that’s because it’s the most complete statement of children’s rights ever to be written. This means that it covers all parts of a child’s life. No-one, or nothing, is left out: the needs of each child is as important as the next. So, as well as extremely important things such as a right to education, healthcare and protection from violence, neglect and exploitation, did you know that children also have… ⭐ The right to be LISTENED TO Article 12 - respect for the views of the child ⭐ The right to EXPRESS THEIR THOUGHTS AND OPINIONS Article 13 - freedom of expression ⭐ The right to PLAY WITH THEIR FRIENDS Article 15 - freedom of association ⭐ The right to RELAX and PLAY! Article 31 - leisure, play and culture What does this actually mean for [...]

How YOU can help shape a revolution in children’s rights!2020-09-14T12:58:15+00:00

A whole WEEK of BPPG adventures! Phew!

2021-07-02T09:44:27+00:00

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. This week, we started two new sessions after school on Wednesdays and Thursdays, alongside our usual Saturday morning adventures. These smaller sessions are for invited families, whereas our big Saturday adventures are for anyone to join! See below for details of our next open sessions. Or, read on as Iona shares the fun-filled highlights of what we got upto this week! Wednesday! 2 September 2020 Our first Wednesday session was fantastic! Creepy crabs, orange potato houses and seriously cool grannies! A small session full of energy, ideas and warmth. In BALLOONS, we flew up high and saw all kinds of things from the sky... 🐍 Emmanuel spotted a big blue river that looked like a slippery snake, and it turned out to be the River Clyde! 🏴‍☠️ Boatemma saw a pirate ship on the river ✈️ When we flew above the whole world, we saw planes that were flying to London and the Eiffel Tower! 🦁 In the rainforest, Djames spotted a monkey doing a poo - it was being chased by a lion who was being chased by a snake - what a chase! Luckily, [...]

A whole WEEK of BPPG adventures! Phew!2021-07-02T09:44:27+00:00

Introducing Andre & Sanjay!

2022-02-23T16:49:55+00:00

Meet our new team members and hear about their training experience in Andre's blog! Friday 4th September 2020 Working for Licketyspit is never easy but fun, never simple but relaxed, and never formulaic but planned. Hello, my name is Andre and I am one of your new Actor Pedagogue (AP) Trainees for Licketyspit; a children’s early years theatre and play company based in Glasgow. In this blog I will be talking about my process and experiences so far with my new colleges, giving an insight into multiple elements of the job like training sessions, line learning, glitches, inductions, 2nd AP and DJ roles so that others can learn from my experiences. Starting in a new position in any job can be daunting and much like the Scared Koala, Crying Giraffe and Shy Fox, the lead up to the first few days filled me with anxiety. However, soon after starting the first training day, my feelings of dread and doubt eroded as I started to learn what I would be doing as one of two new APs. Going through and learning new exercises, songs, and games that we would do with our participants, I particularly loved taking part in the reflective drawing at the end of each session which was charming. And Jelly on His Head was a funny kind of silly [...]

Introducing Andre & Sanjay!2022-02-23T16:49:55+00:00

Another (very big) Big Porridge & Play adventure!

2021-07-02T09:44:36+00:00

Welcome to the Big Porridge & Play blog, where we share the stories of the adventures we've had during our virtual play sessions on Zoom. If you'd like to join our online weekend sessions (every Saturday, from 10.30am), all you need to do is email us at cfn@licketyspit.com or text us on 07413 800 342. We'll let you know all the details, and which dates we're welcoming new families at (we do this one Saturday per month - see below for dates). Our sessions are open to all children and families, so please do get in touch! Saturday 22 August Another busy and fun-packed session! Iona shares her thoughts after last week's Big Porridge and Play online session, which our busiest ever with an incredible 76 participants! Take a look opposite at some of the wonderful drawings we were sent this week and last. What a great session! It was very busy on Saturday, with 27 families and 76 participants - including some new faces from the Govanhill Children’s Festival! Some of my favourite highlights were... 🐘 🐠 🐇 🐔 Meeting all sorts of fantastic animals when we played FUNKY CHICKEN: Imre and Bence’s Fortunate Fish, Ellie’s Sneaky Bunny, a Crying Elephant who needed a hug and Tobi’s Cute Kitten who softly purred!  🎂 🍳 🍩 🍌 Then, in JELLY ON [...]

Another (very big) Big Porridge & Play adventure!2021-07-02T09:44:36+00:00

Go to Top