Bookplay is a Porridge & Play session where we all listen to a Story and then instead of the Magic Ball we ALL JUMP into the world of a BOOK to have an adventure!

The Just-so-John Bookplay stories are by a writer called Rudyard Kipling who was born 160 years ago in India! Rudyard travelled all over the world, which was quite amazing because this was before there were aeroplanes so you could only travel by foot, by boat, by horse, by bicycle  or by train!!  

Rudyard’s stories for children were inspired by all the different places he saw – a bit like us with our Flying Balloons game! His Just-So stories are about animals in India and Africa! (His most famous children’s book is The Jungle Book – which you might have heard of! ) His Just So Stories are about how he imagined some of the animals in the world came to be the way they are – how the camel got his hump? , how the leopard got his spots?, how the whale got his throat? and other questions.

Virginia’s Dad John loved these Just So Stories when he was a child. When he grew up he read them to his children (including Virginia) and then he read them to his grandchildren! John lived until he was nearly 91! When he died  some of his friends and family decided it would be fun to help Licketyspit to do some Just-so- John Bookplay Sessions to introduce the stories John loved to more children!  We are calling these our Just-So-John Bookplays! We hope you enjoy them!

‘How the Whale got His Throat’ by Rudyard Kipling – a Bookplay by Bridgeton, Whiteinch and Maryhill Hub families…

Today our Bookplay session was outdoors in a spot Licketyspit families love to go to …the Children’s Wood!

The Children’s Wood is a brilliant green space in Glasgow – we are very lucky that we live in a city with so many big and wee green spaces for us all to enjoy and look after. Our pal Andrea from the Children’s Wood Team joined us too and of course we thought – what’s more exciting than to listen to a good story around Andrea’s campfire?

 

 Excellent idea, my beloved!

Andrea knows everything about building fires we can enjoy safely and without damaging any nature around us – so we set up our Storyplay camp around the campfire, with a nice big picnic, and a wee shelter to make us all feel cozy and give us cover in case it rained – It didn’t! hurray!

And so, we sat round the fire and Ruby read the Rudyard Kipling Just So Story about ‘How The Whale Got His Throat’. You could have heard a pin drop! Everyone was so engrossed in the tale!

‘By means of a grating, I have stopped your ‘ating.’

While we toasted some marshmallows we all chatted about the story –

How many characters were there?

Who would like to play what?

How could you be one character one minute and another the next?, just

like that?

And how could the Mariner (sailor)manage to create a giant grating for the Whale’s throat with only a wee knife?

Well…the Mariner, as we had heard, was ‘a man of infinite-resource-and-sagacity.’

Did you know that infinite’ means ‘never ending’ and ‘Sagacity’ means ‘clever and canny’ ?

It was time to get on our feet and JUMP INTO the Kipling story of ‘How The Whale Got His Throat’ and a great way in is to dress up!

Abackr got started as the Stute Fish and Malak was a crab, Waheed felt strongly that he wanted to be the Whale and Farah decided to be the Sea itself! Many doubled as fish and other sea creatures, and everyone embodied the Big Great Whale swimming across the sea…whoosh!

Then Sarah and Grace became the Mariners and got eaten up by the whale – and that was too much fun not to have a go at, so other people became Mariners and enjoyed getting gulped up too!

 

‘Noble and generous Cetacean, have you ever tasted Man?’

Inside the Whale’s belly a riot ensued and we all ‘stumped and they jumped and they thumped and they bumped…they pranced and they danced and they …hopped and they dropped and they ..danced hornpipes where they shouldn’t!” until the Whale got the hiccups.

Getting out of the Whale’s belly was also very fun, so quite a few Mariners got ejected!

The grating created by the Mariners who cut up the raft with the cunning use of the wee Jack knife, which proved to be very effective – the Whale tried several times to eat up more mariners but with no success because the grating we had stuck across the Whale’s throat was most effective. From that moment on, no fish or humans could ever be eaten by the Whale. Which also meant that the Whale’s digestion was going to be much more comfortable – happy days!

We had our lovely Picnic sitting together beneath the trees in the Children’s Wood enjoying being outdoors in the fresh air – we even had time to chase about between the trees!

Isn’t it great how you can Bookplay absolutely anywhere you like? All you need is your favourite story, some friends and your fantastic imaginations! What other great story could you Bookplay with your family and friends? Maybe you could tell us about it?

Ruby, Sarah, Taz, Andrea & our pals at The Children’s Wood

Could you BOOKPLAY a story with your family and friends this weekend?

Listen to John telling How The Whale Got His Throat by Rudyard Kipling by clicking here!

Bridgeton Blog!

3rd October 2025

For our last Bridgeton Porridge & Play we thought we better bake a cake!

With Chef Santa’s chicken, Suliman & Mohsin’s chips

Niamate’s sprinkles and Maab’s jellyfish!

Chef Phillipe from France and Chef Pirate from India, joined many more with their ingredients.

Seena and Evanna brought strawberries and Chef Scary brought buns.

Chef Duaa brought ice cream that tasted like bubblegum. 

Amira added strawberry sauce and Mariam rainbow lolly pops.

There was bubblegum, coconut, eggs and dragon fruit.

Then lettuce and pizza and Chef Samira’s cream.

We stirred them all in and it turned out a dream.

Burger with Nutella – we had to try it!

Chicken Nuggets? there’s never been a cake like it!

I wonder if vanilla will cover these up…

Chef Ouff’s smelly shoes and belly button fluff 

And Moira’s ear wax – would the Ogre like the cake?

Chef Alan had a brilliant idea! 

Let’s add sleepy leaves to put him to sleep!

The Ogre appeared with a terrible roar – we cut him some cake then gave him some more.

With a yawn and a stretch he began to nod off. 

“Phew!” we said, “That was strong stuff!”

The Ogre wasn’t the only beast at this feast.

Mr Wolf appeared with his gold rainbow watch

When we asked him the time, he tried to eat us!

We escaped and soon we were drawing in peace

Snacking on fruit and sweet potato soup

Madan’s jollof rice and Virginia’s cake too!

Thank you for bringing your joy and your cheer

We love P&P Bridgeton more every year!

Big thanks to Eoin Carey our photographer, who took photos at this final session.

Next time

Porridge & Play Bridgeton will be back next year.

In the meantime, look out for WhatsApp messages from us about other Storyplay activities around the city.

Use your playcards and resources on our website to support play at home.

Click on the playcards to play with us online. Scroll down for more links.

Reflective Drawing

We almost always do ‘Reflective drawing’ at the end of a Storyplay session. It’s nice to relax and draw & think about what we’ve all done & how we feel about it.

Reflective drawing isn’t about doing a ‘good’ drawing – it’s about drawing whatever comes into your head when you think about what you’ve just done.

But as you draw you realise more about what you thought or imagined in the session. And it’s great to share that with everyone & hear what they thought! So many things go on in Storyplay!

Here are some of our Reflective Drawings from this week:

 

Read some of the artist’s reflections from the Lickety Art Gallery: 

There’s lots of ideas and activities to get you playing at home. Try our interactive videos! Including…

• Making with Iona
• Cooking with Taz
• Exploring with Jack
• Funky Chicken
• Grandma Grandma

and many more!

Read past blog posts about sessions at Bridgeton St Francis in the East and Picnic & Play trips. You can also read our stories in the Porridge & Play Bridgeton Zine!

We have some Lickety Mums who volunteer at our Porridge & Play sessions as Storyplay Champions.

If you would like to find out more about Storyplay Champion training and volunteering, click on this button or get in touch with us on cfn@licketyspit.com

Bridgeton Blog!

26th September 2025

This was the week of Monster’s Footsteps and the Sea!

The Present Game

We started off with the present game, where we created imaginary gifts for each other like turtles and flowers!

Then we had a dance!

Flying Balloons

1, 2, 3…off we go!!

We picked up our balloons for another adventure.

High in the sky we flew.

Howida and Salah saw green snakes down below and monkeys in the sky!

Leeanne saw the River Clyde!

What was in the river? Could it be a pirate ship? Or what about an ice cream shop?

WHOOSH!

We swooped down for an ice cream.

Lin had chocolate and Lexi had nutella, but Maab had egg flavour! How funny!

We were all a bit sticky from the ice cream, so Andre suggested we fly back down for a swim.

SPLASH!

Into the water we went, watching out for sharks. Mariam found some stars and golden money so we all started digging for treasure.  Leeanne found a green emerald.

But oh no – the shark was back! Maybe it was guarding the treasure?

Swim for your lives!

PHEW!

We got away and found ourselves on a beach.

Lin taught us a song around the campfire

Five little ducks went out one day

Over the hill and far away 

Monster’s Footsteps

We loved that song!

Just then, the dressing up fairy appeared.

She was throwing a party for the Grannies in the forest – but no one had come.

She asked us if we would dress up as the Grannies and we said YES!

We had Granny Bubblegum and Granny Chocolate, Granny Peaches and Granny Ice Cream.

Lovely Granny and her sister, Strawberry Granny and Pineapple Granny.

Granny Foxy and Angry Granny and let’s not forget Granny Dinosaur!

These grannies had heard the rumour that when we’re not looking, the trees turn into monsters, but they weren’t scared.

Angry Granny lived up in a tree and liked to be brave.

Lovely Granny liked to play hide and seek and Granny Evie likes the dark!

But oh no…I think those trees have moved…

They are monsters!

RUN!

Storyplay Champions

We love it when families who have been coming to our sessions for a while start helping to host!

Here are two of our Storyplay Champions counting bowls of soup for the meal.

This week we also had help with photographs and notes for the blog.

We had a delicious meal of lentil soup, pineapple, boiled eggs and lots more!

Then we shared our reflective drawings in the Lickety Gallery which you can read about below.

Reflective Drawing

We almost always do ‘Reflective drawing’ at the end of a Storyplay session. It’s nice to relax and draw & think about what we’ve all done & how we feel about it.

Reflective drawing isn’t about doing a ‘good’ drawing – it’s about drawing whatever comes into your head when you think about what you’ve just done.

But as you draw you realise more about what you thought or imagined in the session. And it’s great to share that with everyone & hear what they thought! So many things go on in Storyplay!

Here are some of our Reflective Drawings from this week:

 

Read some of the artist’s reflections from the Lickety Art Gallery: 

Next week is the last session in this block so we will be joined by Virginia and we’ll be asking for your feedback on this block of Porridge & Play.

See you then!

Andre, Ruby & Paul

There’s lots of ideas and activities to get you playing at home. Try our interactive videos! Including…

• Making with Iona
• Cooking with Taz
• Exploring with Jack
• Funky Chicken
• Grandma Grandma

and many more!

Read past blog posts about sessions at Bridgeton St Francis in the East and Picnic & Play trips. You can also read our stories in the Porridge & Play Bridgeton Zine!

We have some Lickety Mums who volunteer at our Porridge & Play sessions as Storyplay Champions.

If you would like to find out more about Storyplay Champion training and volunteering, click on this button or get in touch with us on cfn@licketyspit.com

Bridgeton Blog!

19th September 2025

This was the week of Witches, Mucky Brew and our second Magic Ball adventure!!

Dancing Warm Up

We began with a Dancing Warm Up! Everyone shared their best moves.

Funky Chicken

Then we met some awesome animals! These in included:

• Howida’s Funny Cat 
• Lin’s Angry Bunny 
• Salah’s Excited Tiger 
• Moira’s Cheeky Crocodile!

Mucky Brew

Mucky ME

Mucky YOU

Mucky mucky mucky BREW!

This was a fruity brew. We poured, sprinkled and rubbed all sorts of funny things on our head!

• A big watermelon
• A big pineapple
• Chopped apple
• A big egg
• A big kiwi
• A booger (yuck!)
• A chocolate cake
• Grapes
• A pomegranate

Witch’s Fingers!

I’m going to drink…a bottle of….POISON!

We ran away from those tricksy witches as quick as we could!

Magic Ball

Then one of the magical witches found the Magic Ball.

It took us to MUDLAND!

We got stuck in the mud. We couldn’t get out!

What could we do but have a big….mudfight!

Just then, a noise.

I wonder who lives in Mudland?

It’s a monster!

Luckily he was just hungry.

He loved the bread and jam we gave him.

Then he wanted to play hide and seek with us.

Well, we were so tired from all that playing that we had to have a nap.

When we woke up, we found ourselves on a beach.

So we washed off the mud in the…SEA!

Splash!

We saw a shark, porpoises, and finally a SEA MONSTER!

Uh oh!

We quickly swam away and back to the Magic Ball.

The Storyplay Games

All our games are on our Lickety Playcards. You will get your very own pack in week 5 to help you Storyplay at home!

We had a delicious meal of sweet potato soup, watermelon, strawberries and plenty of bread and jam!

Then we shared our reflective drawings in the Lickety Gallery which you can read about below.

Reflective Drawing

We almost always do ‘Reflective drawing’ at the end of a Storyplay session. It’s nice to relax and draw & think about what we’ve all done & how we feel about it.

Reflective drawing isn’t about doing a ‘good’ drawing – it’s about drawing whatever comes into your head when you think about what you’ve just done.

But as you draw you realise more about what you thought or imagined in the session. And it’s great to share that with everyone & hear what they thought! So many things go on in Storyplay!

Here are some of our Reflective Drawings from this week:

 

Read some of the artist’s reflections from the Lickety Art Gallery: 

See you again soon for more Storyplay!

Andre, Ruby & Paul

There’s lots of ideas and activities to get you playing at home. Try our interactive videos! Including…

• Making with Iona
• Cooking with Taz
• Exploring with Jack
• Funky Chicken
• Grandma Grandma

and many more!

Read past blog posts about sessions at Bridgeton St Francis in the East and Picnic & Play trips. You can also read our stories in the Porridge & Play Bridgeton Zine!

We have some Lickety Mums who volunteer at our Porridge & Play sessions as Storyplay Champions.

If you would like to find out more about Storyplay Champion training and volunteering, click on this button or get in touch with us on cfn@licketyspit.com

Bridgeton Blog!

12th September 2025

Week 2 – woohoo!

We warmed up by making ourselves as Big as a Bear…and as fast as a hare!

As well as these rhyming creatures, you came up with loads more!

There was:

Dua’s Dying Bee

Alan’s Metal Chicken

Ouff’s Flying Snail

Emilia’s Jogging Shark

Maab’s Funky Chicken

Zara’s Pinching Crab

Leeanne’s Angry Tiger

Zhara’s Funny Cow

Awoooo!

Did you say something?

What’s the time Mr Wolf!

There’s only one animal in the Storyplay woods who has a watch.

We got ready for school with Mohammed Wolf. He had a gold and silver watch.

We crept about with Wilhelmina Wolf.

Suliman Wolf lived in deep water and wore an orange watch.

Scary Wolf Dua lived at the end of the forest and liked to hunt.

Dinner time!

We enjoyed carrot and lentil soup.

Bread and boiled eggs.

And Paul’s delicious fruit platters!

The Storyplay Games

All our games are on our Lickety Playcards. You will get your very own pack in week 5 to help you Storyplay at home!

Reflective Drawing

We almost always do ‘Reflective drawing’ at the end of a Storyplay session. It’s nice to relax and draw & think about what we’ve all done & how we feel about it.

Reflective drawing isn’t about doing a ‘good’ drawing – it’s about drawing whatever comes into your head when you think about what you’ve just done.

But as you draw you realise more about what you thought or imagined in the session. And it’s great to share that with everyone & hear what they thought! So many things go on in Storyplay!

Here are some of our Reflective Drawings from this week:

 

Read some of the artist’s reflections from the Lickety Art Gallery: 

See you again soon for more Storyplay!

Andre, Ruby & Paul

There’s lots of ideas and activities to get you playing at home. Try our interactive videos! Including…

• Making with Iona
• Cooking with Taz
• Exploring with Jack
• Funky Chicken
• Grandma Grandma

and many more!

Read past blog posts about sessions at Bridgeton St Francis in the East and Picnic & Play trips. You can also read our stories in the Porridge & Play Bridgeton Zine!

We have some Lickety Mums who volunteer at our Porridge & Play sessions as Storyplay Champions.

If you would like to find out more about Storyplay Champion training and volunteering, click on this button or get in touch with us on cfn@licketyspit.com

Bridgeton Blog!

5th September 2025

Howdy Bridgeton, it was brilliant to see you all again on Friday. You’ve all grown tall as trees!

It really is GREAT to be back for another year of Storyplay family fun at Bridgeton St Francis.

We welcomed 3 new families to our group and introduced them to some of our favourite Licketyspit games – Funky Chicken, Flying Balloons, Dressing Up and Magic Ball.

We also played Leeanne’s game Street Catch, which is part of the All Scot Playcards we made together in 2022.

You can find out how to play it by clicking on the playcard —->

We dressed up in wonderful ways!

We met SuperMum who arrived from her kitchen on a plane and SuperGod who fights villains.

The Magic Ball took us to another dimension, 

where we met a villain!

Luckily SuperGod was there to keep us safe.

We realised we were next to the Red Sea so we decided to have a swim. The water was so refreshing.

Then we came upon a ship and we climbed aboard. Just in time! A shark was swimming towards us.

Whoosh! SuperGod threw the shark into space

What a relief. The waves started to rock us all to sleep.

We woke up just in time to get into the Magic Ball and head back to Bridgeton for our dinner.

We had watermelon and soup, bread and cucumber and lots of other fruit.

Deeelicious!

We can’t wait to see you next week and play even more Storyplay games with you.

What will you imagine next?

Andre, Ruby, Paul and Virginia

The Storyplay Games

All our games are on our Lickety Playcards. You will get your very own pack in week 5 to help you Storyplay at home!

Reflective Drawing

We almost always do ‘Reflective drawing’ at the end of a Storyplay session. It’s nice to relax and draw & think about what we’ve all done & how we feel about it.

Reflective drawing isn’t about doing a ‘good’ drawing – it’s about drawing whatever comes into your head when you think about what you’ve just done.

But as you draw you realise more about what you thought or imagined in the session. And it’s great to share that with everyone & hear what they thought! So many things go on in Storyplay!

Here are some of our Reflective Drawings from this week:

 

Read some of the artist’s reflections from the Lickety Art Gallery: 

There’s lots of ideas and activities to get you playing at home. Try our interactive videos! Including…

• Making with Iona
• Cooking with Taz
• Exploring with Jack
• Funky Chicken
• Grandma Grandma

and many more!

Read past blog posts about sessions at Bridgeton St Francis in the East and Picnic & Play trips. You can also read our stories in the Porridge & Play Bridgeton Zine!

We have some Lickety Mums who volunteer at our Porridge & Play sessions as Storyplay Champions.

If you would like to find out more about Storyplay Champion training and volunteering, click on this button or get in touch with us on cfn@licketyspit.com

What’s the saying? If life gives you lemons…make lemonade. And if the Picnic cannot happen outdoors…have it indoors! Our fabulous Bridgeton Hub wasn’t fazed by the change of plan because the truth is, ALL we need for a brilliant Storyplay is our imaginations and each other! And that we had!

That’s the great thing about Storyplay, we can be anyone, do anything, go anywhere with our imaginations and so today although we were indoors in a fantastic big hall at the CCH in Maryhill, we had a sea adventure as The Ugliest Pirate Crew ever known to Scotland! Amongst other things actually…

As we always like to do, we had a nice big warm up – we first had a nice boogie and then we stretched to our Big As A Bear rhyme!

We also met some cool animals playing Funky Chicken – Emilia showed us the Jumping Snake, Alan the Flying Fly. Tanisk came up with a Flying Car and Moira created the Angry Crocodile. Lexi was a Crazy Giraffe and Leeanne was Purring Cat. Lin created a Fast Dog and Suleman an Angry Cat.

After that we all became Cackling Witches with long witchy fingers coming up with all sorts of weird concoctions to drink!

‘I’m going to drink a bottle of…Snake Juice!’

 The big Reid Hall at the CCH is a great space to run around and the Witches had it tough to get to catch people after saying ‘I’m going to drink a bottle of…POISON!’ – but they still managed!

Dressing up was deliciously UGLY! Ugly? Well, aye, aye! And you know why? Because the challenge was to become the Ugliest Pirate Crew Ever Known to Scotland!

Captain Tatty Scone – who looked a bit like Taz – was recruiting for ugly pirates and our Bridgeton Hub raised to the occasion and became as ugly as ugly can be! Once the level of ugliness of these crazy pirates was established Captain Tatty Scone started shouting orders about –

 SCRUB THE DECK!

            CLIMB THE RIGGING!

                     and….. WALK THE PLANK!

The Ugly Pirates were very good at following orders so the Captain decided to do some Captain try-outs and let some of the crew be in charge…

We had Captain Ridhi who was mean and Captain Lin who was very interested in keeping the ship clean! Some of the other pirates didn’t enter the try-outs but started calling themselves Captain none the less! At some point the whole crew was made of Captains which doesn’t happen often but we seemed to be getting along fine, so all the Captains decided it was time to cross the Seven Seas…underwater! We took a big breath in and underwater we went – there was a shark that looked scary but Alan using his Shark language knowledge managed to persuade it not to eat us up!

– Who has the treasure map? – said a Captain

– I have the map! – said Captain Salah

– Right, let’s take a look – said another Captain

We quickly worked out that we had to swim to a desert island if we wanted to dig out the treasure and so off we swam until we got there.

-I found the spot!

-Everyone DIG!

There were coins and jewels and all sorts of fabulous treasure to share and also we found…A LOVE LETTER! Naturally we decided to play I Sent a Letter to My Love and it was great fun! We had our lovely picnic sitting on picnic blankets, and we even had some ice cream with sweeties as toppings Tarika brought for everyone.

We also had time to do a Reflective Drawing and to visit the Licketyspit Art Gallery and after that we even had a game of Tunnel Tig and the very best Hide & Seek game ever known to Scotland! Bad weather? Who cares! What an absolute hoot this Indoors Picnic turned out to be!

Taz, Sarah, Andre & our adventurous Bridgeton Hub

There's lots of ideas and activities to get you playing at home. Try our interactive videos! Including...

• Making with Iona
• Cooking with Taz
• Exploring with Jack
• Funky Chicken
• Grandma Grandma

and many more!

Find out more about what's happening at Licketyspit by clicking on the button.

We have some Lickety Mums who volunteer at our Porridge & Play sessions as Storyplay Champions.

If you would like to find out more about Storyplay Champion training and volunteering, click on this button or get in touch with us on cfn@licketyspit.com

Picnic & Play is here and Licketyspit is delighted to go on trips with friends from all our Porridge & Play Hubs across Glasgow. Picnic & Play is an opportunity to Storyplay away from our Glasgow neighbourhoods – visiting public spaces in our city – like museums, parks or galleries or visiting outdoor places outside Glasgow, like Troon Beach or Balloch Country Park and bringing Storyplay to all of them!

The sky above Troon Beach looked dramatic – a combination of greys with occasional rays of light braking through the clouds. The wind was blowing and there were seagulls screeching loudly while circling in the air through a drizzle of rain. Sound dramatic, right?

Well, no drama for our Maryhill Hub friends! – they were full of beans and so very excited about their day out that they almost didn’t feel how fresh it was – one certainly needed a couple of layers on!

Graeme and Andy, our drivers dropped us near the promenade so carrying all our bits and bobs for our picnic wasn’t a huge effort and everyone helped so it was even easier.

We settled and quickly many of our friends were already running around, digging in the sand or checking out the shore!

DANCING ON THE BEACH!

Our dance warm up got the attention of folk who were there also enjoying a day out and many passersby were smiling at us and admiring our moves! Ruby got us all started, and we threw some cool shapes.

Funky Chicken with Andre was hilarious, and seaside infused! We had a Pinching Crab and an Angry Sea-turtle as well as of course, a Naughty Seagull!

We had to make our voices loud for Hello My Name is Joe and after that, running away in Witches Fingers was particularly satisfying running in the sand!

Letter to my Love is a great game to play outdoors! You can make a massive, big circle and friends get turns very quickly – it is also a funny game with everyone trying to pull the least suspicious face they can possibly master!

We also had a couple of rounds of Monsters Footsteps with some really scary looking Monster Trees…

TIME FOR A PICNIC!

We put down some tarps and big cloths to sit down on the sand and have our tasty picnic which it was so delicious that of course it got the seagulls attention. However, we managed to eat peacefully, and we even had some ice cream before heading to the shore to explore, paddle and…SWIM!

Yeah, you read it right.

Some of our wee pals were determined and in they went for a full swim!

Moman made up a game about jumping waves and Shiva said she got a wee bit nervous when something in the water brushed one of her legs…it was just some seaweed! Dan also swam like a fish and Yasna, Amira and Gabbie loved collecting seashells on the seashore.

Shaylin and Gabriella couldn’t make up their minds. One minute they were jumping waves and the next running away from them! Maha decided after a while that she was going to get in the sea too, but Adam was not convinced, and he just decided to look at all the dogs playing around on the beach and feed muffins to the seagulls!

Did I mention that most of the grown-ups also went for a wee dip …..of their toes?

It was a fantastic and action-pack day at the beach so some of our pals had a wee nap on the bus on our way home but others, like Yasna and Amira, decided to make up games to play while travelling. Clever, eh?

The Picnic & Play season is officially open!!

Andre, Ruby & Taz and our Maryhill Hub

There's lots of ideas and activities to get you playing at home. Try our interactive videos! Including...

• Making with Iona
• Cooking with Taz
• Exploring with Jack
• Funky Chicken
• Grandma Grandma

and many more!

Find out more about what's happening at Licketyspit by clicking on the button.

We have some Lickety Mums who volunteer at our Porridge & Play sessions as Storyplay Champions.

If you would like to find out more about Storyplay Champion training and volunteering, click on this button or get in touch with us on cfn@licketyspit.com

Our cheery Bridgeton hub had a blooming good time at The Children’s Wood. They arrived nice and early and there were many smiles and hugs because we were all together again!

Sarah taught us The Children’s Wood Rhyme and Andre helped us all to make ourselves as Big AS A Bear to warm up. We flew high above the Wood in our Flying Ballo0ns and then we met exquisite creatures with the Funky Chicken – crocodiles, sharks, a happy cat, a naughty elephant, even a Dancing Cricket!

Dressing up was inspiring and inspired – our Bridgeton pals are particularly skilled at using old clothes to turn themselves into the most fabulous characters. They imagined the most colourful animals and creatures that lived in this Forest – a crocodile and a princess cat unicorn, a tiger, a flamingo, a flying squirrel, a giraffe, a chicken and a baby mouse! Did you know that in this forest only one animal has a watch? And when the forest creatures need to know the time there’s no other option but to ask, ‘What’s The Time Mr. Wolf’?

We had Wolfie Rasha who lived in the same tunnel she found her watch in & Wolfie Maab who live in a tree and found her watch in the sky!

Wolfie Emilia had a purple watch that matched her purple house!

Wolfie Alan found his golden watch in an abandoned building!

 Wolfie Abackar had a green watch and at 2 o’clock Wolfie Mariam made all the creatures dance!

Being forest animals and wolves does make one rather hungry, so we had a delicious picnic sitting in the meadow. After that Andrea from The Children’s Wood got us all in a lovely circle to show us how to start a fire and how to cook bread in it!

We learnt how to use flints that create sparks to start the fire, and we learnt how to wrap some bread dough over a stick to cook yummy Stick Bread!

All our Bridgeton pals were exceptional at all these new things, and they were even better at melting marshmallows on a stick over the fire!

There was time for some running around, climbing, jumping and swinging too and although it was a bit cloudy the rain stayed away all day. Maybe that’s because on their way from Bridgeton to the Children’s Wood we had all sung –

Rain, rain go away,

Come again another day!”

It was a beautiful day with beautiful friends in a beautiful green space in Glasgow. Aren’t we lucky?!

Taz, Andre, Sarah, Taiwo & our Govan & Online friends

 

 

There’s lots of ideas and activities to get you playing at home. Try our interactive videos! Including…

• Making with Iona
• Cooking with Taz
• Exploring with Jack
• Funky Chicken
• Grandma Grandma

and many more!

Find out more about what’s happening at Licketyspit by clicking on the button.

We have some Lickety Mums who volunteer at our Porridge & Play sessions as Storyplay Champions.

If you would like to find out more about Storyplay Champion training and volunteering, click on this button or get in touch with us on cfn@licketyspit.com

Forest Storyplay is a new collaboration with our friends from The Children’s Wood!

After last year’s fantastic Picnic & Play sessions and Storyplay Festival 2024 at The Children’s Wood we all wanted to go back there for more Licketyspit fun! The Children’s Wood are very happy to have us back and so this Summer we will bring families from across all our Hubs to enjoy more fantastic Storyplay outdoors.

Click on the logo to go to The Children’s Wood website!

At Forest Storyplay sessions this Summer we’ll have our Licketyspit games, a nice wee picnic and we’ll also get to learn a bit more about how to enjoy and look after The Children’s Wood!

Did you know that they grow food as well as beekeeping?

And that they have a labyrinth?

Did you know that not only they grow new flowers and plants but they also help the land recover by allowing different parts to grow wildly?

And do you know about the fairies? And the giant? And the dragon?!

I wonder how many characters and stories we can come up at the magical Children’s Wood…

We cannot wait to see you there very soon for FOREST STORYPLAY!

Taz, Andre, Sarah, Virginia & all at Licketyspit

There’s lots of ideas and activities to get you playing at home. Try our interactive videos! Including…

• Making with Iona
• Cooking with Taz
• Exploring with Jack
• Funky Chicken
• Grandma Grandma

and many more!

Find out more about what’s happening at Licketyspit by clicking on the button.

We have some Lickety Mums who volunteer at our Porridge & Play sessions as Storyplay Champions.

If you would like to find out more about Storyplay Champion training and volunteering, click on this button or get in touch with us on cfn@licketyspit.com