Big Porridge & Play 2021

We're back for 5 more weeks of online adventures!

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.

Wednesday

21 April 2021

We are back back back we saw Lily, Brown and Osak and met Adesayo’s Jealous Cat!

Wohoo! We met new friends, Mighty Magnus and his Crunchy Crocodile, Fareedah the Unicorn who flew up high and Firefunmi who introduced us to the Lazy Dog… woof! 🐶🦄🐊

Do you know the Cow Chicken? Have you ever been to Orkney and flown on the back of an Eagle? 🦅Have you even imagined how beautiful ancient cave paintings are? 🖌️ Well, this all happened in the Wednesday group of Porridge and Play, and what can we say, it’s so wonderful to PLAY!

The Magic Ball this week was all about Art Voyages!

What’s your favourite art form? Singing, dancing, rapping, painting? We dressed up as EXPLORERS  🥾and jumped inside the Magic Ball! It first took us to a very dark and ancient cave – where we met a bear! 🐻 The bear led us around and when we held our torches up to the walls we saw the most incredible ART! Cows and horses and people, all painted in fantastic colours! Suddenly we all fell down a hole and ended up in the studio of an Artist in Orkney!! 🧑‍🎨 The Artist needed some new models for his sculptures so we all stood very still… until suddenly… we turned to STONE! Eeek! We had to sing a song to make our bodies melt! 🎶 As soon as we were free of the stone we ran into the sea, he he he! An eagle picked us up and we soared over the world back to the Magic Ball!

Wowee, I can’t wait for next week!

From the Wednesday Gang, Iona, Jack & Taz 🎈

‘Do you know the Cow Chicken?’ 🐄 🐓

Brown, Wednesday Group
‘I drawed me, mum dad my brother and my baby sister dancing!’
Junior, Wednesday Group

‘I’m really happy that Magnus came to join the zoom call!’

Lily, Wednesday Group
‘I drawed one of our adventures, that we were flying and I’m pretty sure that Taz was the bear because Adesayo was right! I came to see all of you, because you are all lovely, especially Taz!’

Fareedah, Wednesday Group
‘That’s me and that’s the Mona Lise and I said wow very nice… and this is when we were flying in the air on a bird! It’s a really old painting done by a really famous artist in like the 1800s. I figured it would be kinda nice to draw it… I’m interested in what art form they use and how they chose it.’
Areeb, Wednesday Group

Thursday

22 April 2021

THE THURSDAY GANG IS BACK!!!!

After a wee break for the Easter holidays the Thursday gang got back together to play and carry on having phenomenal imaginary adventures! Big smiles and hellos followed by a warm welcome to our new pal Casey.

Our dance warm up reminded us all about the incredible moves and shapes we can make with our unique and brilliant bodies and then we launched into a round of Funky Chicken with Silly Butterflies, a Squickly Starfish and a Funky Bunny amongst others! 🐇

At this point there was nothing left to do other than dress up, of course, and turn ourselves into explorers on a mission: to find wonderful ART around the world!!

Iona told us that she was so impressed about all the different art-forms that the Thursday Gang had showcased during the Licketyspit Ceilidh that she really wanted to see more art, make more art, discover more art! And so we embarked on a Magic Ball Art Voyage!🗺️ 🖼️

Shullamite had a rainbow Magic Ball from the last time we all played together so we blew it up, got in and whooooooooosh…

Time travel??

And so, where did you land? I hear you ask…well, WHEN did we land more like! Let me explain, not only did we find ourselves in a CAVE but we realised that this was a cave in the PAST! A cave with ANCIENT PAINTINGS!

Ayo had torches and when we lit them with a match, Miracle said:

“I can see paintings of dinosaurs and butterflies!” 🦋🦖

“Can you hear something?” asked Taz.

A cave person appeared!! Luckily Toby was great at communicating with them and told us that there was more to see, but as we followed the cave person they just fell through a hole and disappeared in front of our very eyes!!!

But nothing phases this gang of exploring Art lovers so we made ourselves as thin as a pin and dropped ourselves down the hole in the cave and… 

Landed in PARIS! 🇫🇷 In the studio of an artist who was searching for inspiration for her paintings, while sipping a cup of ArtisticTea! She was delighted to see that inspiration had arrived in the shape of US! After trying a cup of ArtisticTea, we all got up and gave the Artist our best poses for her to sketch! 🕺

“I must go for my nap now, but if you go through that door you could watch a fabulous Circus performance. But you can only get in IF you share some of your own circus routines…”

Circus routines? Do we have any? Well…little we knew about the secret skills of our Thursday gang! We had magic, tight rope walking, balancing, juggling and even a dancing zebra!! 🦓🎶

Our circus extravaganza was so impressive that The Pillow Man who owned The Behind The Door Circus invited us to join them and forever roam the Earth performing our wonderful acts! 🎪

And chuffed as we were to receive such a brilliant invite, we all agreed that our families would miss us if we joined the circus so soon, so we politely declined and set off to get back to the Magic Ball via a super long chute that took us right there, so we could get back home in time for our dinner!

From the Thursday Gang, Iona, Taz & Andre 🎈

Saturday

Saturday 24 April 2021

Do you know The Secret Cave packed to the brim with Art?

The Mona Lise is at the Louvre and that is a well known fact,

but what if I tell you that she’s also here hanging next to Robbie Burns?

With beautiful patterns all over the cave roof and drawings of insects like ants! 🐜

So much to admire in The Secret Cave : portraits, statues and more

And how fortunate are we, Saturday Gang, to get here in our cool Magic Ball?! 🔮

‘Bonjour! Ça va? and welcome! to my artistic hub’ 

The Artist said smiling, and told us his grand plan

‘A huge Art exhibition with so much to see, decorating the lovely Rain Forest!

But it takes quite some work and I’m here on my own

so I’m needing a hand with my project…’ 🖌️

‘We’re happy to help, we’re full of ideas! We’re artists of the Imagination!

We paint and we dance and we sculpt and we rap

And we even perform Circus acts!’ 🤹

‘How brilliant! Ideal! Let’s all get creating!’ 

Sketches of poses, statues of girls,

magic tricks and balancing all over the place!

Paintings, drawings, dances and jokes,

poems, riddles and ‘singing alongs’!

Wherever there’s people there will be some Art

cause like love, hope and kindness 

Art lives in our Hearts! ❤️

By the Saturday Gang, Taz, Jack & Andre 🧑‍🎨 

Send us your design ideas!

The Lickety Art Gallery!

Dressing Up with Effie

In case you missed it, here is the wonderful Effie sharing some of her fabulous dressing up characters using only her wardrobe!

🗝️🧣👒 🕶️
At first it may seem like a pile of old clothes and bits and bobs from around the house, but it’s actually EVERYTHING you need to become infinite characters and get lost in different imaginary worlds…
What’s your favourite dressing up character? Send us a photo if you’d like to share it with the world!

Over to You

The latest creations from Licketyspit Children & Families…

Kamila’s fantastic drawing of the Licketyspit team!

Galavanting with Erin, Ethan & Leah

Visit Balloch Walled Garden with Erin, Ethan & Leah from the Licketyspit Children & Families Network!

Now that we’re allowed to travel round Scotland, hear first hand from children about some of the best family day trips from Glasgow. First up…Balloch!

Leah’s Travel Tips

Citylink Family Tickets: 2 kids go free with 1 adult at the weekends! – Scotrail £1 kids tickets: up to 4 children travel for £1 each with 1 adult.