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Big Porridge & Play Glasgow (BPPG) was first launched in 2017, bringing diverse groups of families together in Ruchill, the Gorbals and Whiteinch for intergenerational imaginary play, food and connection. Licketyspit’s Storyplay sessions are based on the Lickety Playcard repertoire and grounded in children’s rights, equality and the belief that everyone is creative and everyone wants to play! Thanks to the National Lottery, BPPG has been running for almost 6 years with blocks of weekly sessions in 6 Glasgow communities and city-wide.

Since 2020 we have also been delivering Big Porridge & Play online. See below to find out more!

What is Big Porridge & Play?

BIG PORRIDGE & PLAY GLASGOW is a unique Storyplay project for families with children under 12. BPPG 2017-19 was funded by the BIG Lottery (now called The National Lottery Community Fund) and took place for 7/8-week blocks in April-June in the Glasgow communities of Ruchill, Whiteinch and the Gorbals. Families met in large groups for Porridge & Play sessions – imaginary Storyplay games and activities, healthy delicious meals and reflective drawings.

Porridge & Play was developed in response to parents and carers in north Glasgow whose children participated in LicketyLeap. They were astonished and delighted at their children’s confidence and creativity. They asked us, ‘how can we do more of this?!’

Porridge & Play was our response.

Porridge & Play is based on the Licketyspit repertoire of 38 games, rhymes, songs, traditional streetplay and imaginary play. It is designed for children and adults, to encourage continuing intergenerational play.

Each Porridge & Play session begins with a group meal including lots of delicious fruit, porridge for breakfast or homemade soup for lunch. Licketyspit actor-pedagogues then lead a fun and relaxed play session full of fantastic games, songs and imaginary play. The sessions are carefully crafted to develop children’s creativity, social skills, confidence and relationships. We regularly consult children and their adults about how we can improve and develop the sessions.

The games are illustrated in the Lickety Playcards, a set of 32 cards with song words, game instructions and colourful illustrations.

BIG Porridge & Play Glasgow brings families together in their local community centre for an 7-week block of Porridge & Play culminating in a Celebration Sharing Event.

Where do we play?

Click on the links to visit each Porridge & Play Hub’s page.

BPPG 2024- Govan, Cranhill, Bridgeton, Whiteinch, Castlemilk, Maryhill & & Online

2024 is the 8th year of Big Porridge & Play Glasgow. Local families can join Porridge & Play Hub sessions this Spring in Maryhill, Cranhill and Bridgeton, alongside Online Family Sessions and in August/September we will be back in Govan, Whiteinch and Castlemilk.

Picnic & Plays in July will prepare us all for our second STORYPLAY FESTIVAL with ur new partner, the wonderful Kelvin Meadow/Children’s Wood where we will be celebrating the 20th Birthday of Licketyspit – 20 years of children’s rights-led child consultation to develop Storyplay which is still opening doors to imaginary playworlds to unlock the limitless possibilities of children, families & everyone else!

BPPG 23 – Govan, Cranhill, Bridgeton, Whiteinch, Castlemilk, Maryhill & Online

In the 7th year of Big Porridge & Play Glasgow we were lucky enough to be supported by Lottery Community to continue with our Hubs, partners and families at CDT in Cranhill, St Francis’s Bridgeton, Castlemilk Library and Online, and to return to Whiteinch Library and move our Maryhill Hub to Woodside Library! Three Library Hubs let us explore more Bookplay. Our CFN producer created wonderful Hub Zine’s to celebrate each community.

Our fabulous Storyplay Champion families co-hosted these hub sessions & we had wonderful Picnic & Plays at the Tall Ship, Kelvin Meadow/Children’s Wood, at Balloch Country Park and Troon beach! In December we had a fantastic Winter Ceilidh – see Taz’s film about it here!

BPPG 2022 – Govan, Whiteinch, Ruchill & Online

In the 6th year of Big Porridge & Play Glasgow, we did some more online sessions and we went back to Whiteinch Library.

We moved locations in Ruchill, to the Golf Pavillion, as the community centre wasn’t open. We also took the project to Govan for the first time! We had a fabulous time at the Pearce Institute where the wonderful Bimbo, Toby, Dami, Amir and Ameen were our Storyplay Champions.

We welcomed 26 new families to the Licketyspit community, as well as seeing some fabulous familiar faces! Film coming soon!

BPPG Outdoors 2021

In 2021 we continued to deliver Porridge & Play online, and also did some outdoor sessions in parks around Glasgow, as face to face sessions became possible.

BPPG Online 2020

Licketyspit worked hard to adapt our projects to support families to keep playing during the pandemic.

We were very excited to deliver BPPG as an ONLINE project in 2020 via Zoom, with closed community sessions on weekdays as well as open sessions for families across Glasgow every Saturday.

Groups of up to 30 families meet for 90 minute sessions of imaginary play adventures in the Magic Ball, Funky Chicken animal invention, Flying Balloon journeys and lots more singing, dressing up and general hilarity!

The project was extended throughout 2020 thanks to additional funding from The National Lottery Community Fund and recommenced in April 2021.

Find out more about how the project was adapted online here.

BPPG Activity Films 2020

While we’re all at home, tapping into our rich imaginations and playing together with our families is more important than ever. Families at BPPG can find all sorts of other useful & fun content on our website, from videos, games, imaginary play activities in Come & Play to child-friendly explainers about Coronavirus.

We also created an accessible, fun & educational Cooking, Making and Exploring video series with our actor pedagogues Taz, Jack and Iona.

There are 21 videos to watch, find them all on our Youtube and Facebook pages, or watch them here.

BPPG 2017-19

We a fantastic time delivering BIG Porridge & Play Glasgow 2017-2019 with
wonderful families in Ruchill, the Gorbals and Whiteinch.

A BIG thanks to our main funder the National Lottery Community Fund.

We’d also like to thank:

– our partners, The Tall Ship and the Dream Machine, Whiteinch Library, Glasgow Life

-photographer Eoin Carey

– filmmakers Jonathan Ley & Jacek Hubner

– our volunteers & translators, and of course,

all our participants, staff & volunteers!

Big Porridge & Play Blog!

Read about each week’s session, see photos and find your drawings from the Lickety Art Gallery – Don’t forget to show your family and friends!

Please stay in touch, send us a picture to put in the Licketyspit Art Gallery, or see what activities you can do in Come & Play!

You can email us at CFN@licketyspit.com or Tweet us at @LicketyTweet. Follow us on facebook and twitter to see photos of BIG Porridge & Play Glasgow and get our latest news.