Big Porridge & Play 2021

2021-07-02T09:32:43+00:00

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 [...]

Big Porridge & Play 20212021-07-02T09:32:43+00:00

Play In A Time Of Crisis Webinar

2021-07-02T09:40:50+00:00

At the start of February 2021, we were thrilled to be invited to present our work at the International Play Association’s Play in a Time of Crisis Award webinar series, which showcased projects all over the world that have supported children’s right to play during the pandemic. What we shared During the webinar, we spoke about the generosity, joy and limitless creativity we witnessed during Big Porridge & Play Online 2020. As our actor-pedagogues guided families through our Lickety Playcard games, amazing group story improvisation, dressing up and reflective drawing, we saw children break out of lockdown monotony and grow in confidence, becoming a tight-knit group, ready for anything. This was also reflected in the wonderful feedback from children and parents.   We regularly remind our Children & Families Network that “in our imaginations we can be anyone, go anywhere and do anything” - and this was the basis for the huge, and increasingly amazing, group improvisation activities, using Flying Balloons and the clear favourite, Magic Ball. As well as the sheer, thrilling enjoyment of playing together, we saw our participants gain vital life skills such as the pleasure of reciprocity in play, how to respect and listen to others, how to interact confidently with their peers and grown-ups, and the realisation that all we need to [...]

Play In A Time Of Crisis Webinar2021-07-02T09:40:50+00:00

Feeling the love as Big Porridge & Play 2020 draws to a close

2021-07-02T09:41:55+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. Saturday What a brilliant session we had on Saturday with 30 families!! The sessions are so full of excitement and generosity and feels like one big family! We began with BIG AS A BEAR, our great warm up! Gyan told us that the warm up is important because it makes everyone feel comfortable and welcomed, which is so true! 👍 In FUNKY CHICKEN we met 10 hilarious animals! - Junior's Funky Cat 🐱 - Adila & Muhammed's Ninja Horse 🐴 - Janaiba's & Ramtoulah's Angry Lion 🦁 - Adesire's Funny Butterfly 🦋 - Adeola's Funky Cat 🐈 - Simmi's Funky Chicken 🐓 - Modou's Angry Horse 🐴 - Queen & Faly's Slivering Snake 🐍 - Princess’s Crying Puppy 🐶 - Michris’s Baby Polar-bear 🐻 We then dressed up wonderfully for a very special occasion... to write and send A LETTER TO OUR LOVES!! And how beautiful we all looked! Everyone wrote fantastic letters! Islam wrote her letter to her bed. 🛏 Donald wrote to pizza 🍕 ! Lawand wrote a letter to his squirrel 🐿 ! Ramtoulah wrote to her best friend! Yumna wrote to her mum, dad and pet fish! 🐠 Meerab [...]

Feeling the love as Big Porridge & Play 2020 draws to a close2021-07-02T09:41:55+00:00

An EXTRA BIG adventure as BPPG 2020 draws to a close!

2021-07-02T09:42:05+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. We love Saturday Porridge & Play sessions! 37 families attended our Saturday session last week, and what a brilliant session it was. We stomped like Latifa’s Grumpy Elephant! We covered ourselves in Simmi’s butter and cheese in Mucky Brew! And we flew with Tobi and Marvellous’s jetpacks off the top of Mount Everest! Funky animals and messy concoctions! 🐔 🐝 🦅 In FUNKY CHICKEN we met Queen & Faly’s Crazy Unicorn, Abdulmateen’s Bad Monkey, Ayaan’s Funky Butterfly, Ameen’s Loud Lion, Simon & Shullamite’s Busy Bee, Fiyin & Favour’s Naughty Seagull, Latifa’s Grumpy Elephant, Lawand’s Silly House and Sayeh’s Dancing Bird who went ‘tweet tweet tweet!’ 🥚 🧀 🍨 We then decided to dress up, and cover ourselves in MUCKY BREW! First we cracked a great big egg on our heads, followed by Simmi’s butter with cheese, Emma & James’s mayonnaise, Miracle & Michelle’s mermaid's tail, Junior’s shea butter, Lorraine’s yoghurt, Princess’s feathers, Queen & Faly’s slime, Sayeh’s honey, Shullamite's rotten eggs, Victoria’s ice cream, Sylvia’s cake and Muiz’s chocolate! Then we mixed it all in… SOOOO MUCKY! Finding the Magic Ball ⛰️ 🦕After Iona found an orange Magic [...]

An EXTRA BIG adventure as BPPG 2020 draws to a close!2021-07-02T09:42:05+00:00

Dancing and singing with Adie Baako!

2021-07-02T09:42:16+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. What an exciting week! 🎵 ‘Everybody! Bring your calabash! Bring your calabash!’ 🎶 At this week’s Big Porridge & Play Online sessions, we had the privilege of being joined by Adie Baako, a professional dancer from Ghana now living in Scotland, and enjoyed a week of dancing and singing and moving and grooving! We sang about the calabash, danced the Kpanlogo, a social dance from Greater Accra in Ghana, and found out all about Adie’s life! Learning about Adie’s life 🇬🇭 🎣 Adie is a dancer from Ghana, now living in Midlothian, near Edinburgh. He's been dancing professionally for 26 years and he told us how he started dancing when he was a wee boy growing up in a village. Adie grew up by the sea with his Dad, a fisherman, and his Mum, who worked selling in the markets. Before going to school Adie, like other children, would do chores in the house to help the family, fetch water for the pots, and then wash to get ready to go to school to learn. An early start in the morning for wee [...]

Dancing and singing with Adie Baako!2021-07-02T09:42:16+00:00

Andre and Taz share this week’s BPPG highlights!

2021-07-02T09:42:23+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. For this week's blog, Licketyspit actor-pedagogues Taz and Andre share some of their highlights from the action-packed Big Porridge & Play sessions. Wednesday 👨 Our action-packed session kick-started with Busy Joe’s button-pushing story in the song HELLO, MY NAME IS JOE. This catchy tune had us all defying gravity while pushing buttons with our hands, legs, head and tongues! 💃 After welcoming everyone we had a fantastic Dance Warm-Up with toe-tapping Indian beats and let me tell you, some of the moves were outstanding and full of joy! Smiles all round! 🐔 A sharp round of FUNKY CHICKEN followed where we met a Speedy Crab, a Scary Dinosaur AND a Silly Dinosaur, a Beautiful Rabbit, a Scary Lion and even a Dancing Parrot! 🏴‍☠️ This week’s Dressing Up got us all grooving and transforming into a mean and not so mean Pirate Crew of Misfits with Zofia Pink Mustachio Pirate, Terrible Frankie, Nuo Xuan Pirate Queen, Lily Rose of the Ocean, Felicia Fluffy Pirate and Fierce Sayeh to name a few! 🚢 Naturally, Captain Taz got her bossy bandana on and shouted orders at everyone. "Scrub [...]

Andre and Taz share this week’s BPPG highlights!2021-07-02T09:42:23+00:00

Aye aye, Captain! All aboard our Pirate Ship!

2021-07-02T09:48:49+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. Saturday 7 November This week's Saturday session We enjoyed another ENORMOUS play session on Saturday - with 28 families joining us! 🐶 🐅🦋 After an energetic dancing warm up and a lovely stretch, we met all kinds of animals in the FUNKY CHICKEN! Queen & Faly’s Dying Fly, Miracle & Michelle's Silly Monkey, Junior's Funky Tiger, Arshiyan's Flying Fish, Affan's Fat Tiger, Fateh Kamila & Saif's Funky Dog, Anaya & Ayesha's Funny Parrot, Adesire's Funny Butterfly, Aroush's Cat and Iona’s Sneaky Sparrow... Woweee! What amazing animals you came up with! 🚢 🏴‍☠️ We then boarded a mighty PIRATE ship - and met lots of captains! Captain Brown, Junior, Princess, Michris, Muhammed and Sulyman ordered us to do lots of things like... scrub the deck, climb the rigging, walk the plank, and... SHARK ATTACK!  🌊🔮 Suddenly, the ship began to sink and we found ourselves under the sea! Iona spotted a MAGIC BALL so we swam and swam, got inside it and said the magic words. We undid our zips, and found ourselves... inside the stomach of a whale! 🐋 🐟 It smelt like rotten fish, and [...]

Aye aye, Captain! All aboard our Pirate Ship!2021-07-02T09:48:49+00:00

Cakes, castles and Carrot & Cheese World!

2021-07-02T09:42:44+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. Saturday 24 October 2020 What a happy, energetic and exuberant session we had on Saturday! We learned new ways to say hello, stirred autumn leaves and honey together to make a great big cake - and we went inside a fairytale book in our game of MAGIC BALL! ⭐ In our new HELLO GAME, we learned how to say hello in four new languages - we can’t wait to learn even more next week! 👋🏾 Yoruba - Bawoni 👋🏿 Urdu - As-salaam 'alykum 👋🏻 Arabic - Marhaba 👋🏾 Wolof - As-salaam 'alykum 🎂Then, we dressed up marvellously as bakers for LET'S BAKE A CAKE! Chef Virginia & Andre needed everyone’s help to make an enormous cake, so we all put on our hats and aprons, grabbed a wooden spoon and a great big bowl... and off we went! 🎶 ‘Let’s make a cake, let’s make a cake, think of all the things that we like best!’ 🍓 We filled the cake with... autumn leaves, honey (Anaya & Ayesha), strawberries, jam, vanilla (Brown), caramel (Abdullah) and [...]

Cakes, castles and Carrot & Cheese World!2021-07-02T09:42:44+00:00

Celebrating our many languages in The Hello Game!

2021-07-02T09:43:04+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. Saturday 17 October 2020 It was great to get back to Big Porridge & Play this Saturday after a week’s break - and we have 8 more weeks of Saturday sessions to look forward to! Hooray! What a brilliant time we had! We played 👵 GRANDMA GRANDMA and 🐔 FUNKY CHICKEN, went on an epic 🔮 MAGIC BALL adventure - and also enjoyed a brand new game called the HELLO GAME!  Celebrating our multi-lingual network! Did you know that there are 158 different languages spoken in Glasgow?! Wow! We found this out last week, and so decided to invent the HELLO GAME to find out some of the languages that are spoken in the group - and it turned out there were SO many! Here are some of the ways we learnt to say HELLO to each other this week: 👋  In Kurdish - Salaam 👋🏿  In Yoruba - Bawo ni 👋🏾  In Shona - Mhoroi Mhoroi 👋🏿  In Hungarian - Szia 👋🏻  In Urdu - Assalamu alaikum But then, we found the Magic Ball! 🚀 After flying through the stars in a spaceship we [...]

Celebrating our many languages in The Hello Game!2021-07-02T09:43:04+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

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