Come all, come all to Porridge & Play

You can be anyone; do anything every day!

With Funky Chicken you get to be,

Any animal you like – Yes even a flea!

A Happy Horsey or a Happy cat.

A Mad Lizard and a Scary cat!

An Angry Kangaroo and a Naughty Penguin.

– And let’s all cheer up that poor Sad penguin!

Pick a balloon of your favourite colour

Blow it up big and fly round the world

the world, the world which is best from the air!

People of all countries – they are here, here and there!

 

This is my red balloon, I blew it up and went to Antarctica,

 it was very cold; we counted to 5 and the balloon popped! OOOOOOOh!

 

Going around the world is like going outside our circle,

We saw lots of rainbows and our footsteps outside the circle,

going around and around and around…

 

The rivers, the countries, that’s a tree and that’s ME!

Pick up a balloon!

Fly wherever you want to be!

 

A very good cake just fit for a king.

We can bake you one in a blink!

And we can even sing!

Arafa added eggs,

Alan some raspberries,

Malak said –  let’s put apple in the cake!

Mohammed put 5 vanilla drops

And Summer binded it all up with flour!

‘let’s put rainbow cream in the cake! We put it on like this’

Salah showed us all :  sh-sh- sh- sh-ssssssh!

A cake for the King in a giant black castle!

And this is jelly, so so good with cake!

Also cream with the strawberries in!

Tastes delicious and on top… the king!

It is a birthday cake for the king of the castle;

Deliciously tasting of strawberry with pistachio!

 

All of us sitting together

we used ingredients for the cake –

flour, eggs, milk and many other things,

it was a delicious cake!

A castle and a cake!

There is also water here –

 And a dog inside a cave!

 

What a great Bridgeton Porridge & Play Day!

Thanks everybody for such a great Day of Play!

See you next week! When Nerea will welcome back Paul and Steven to our Licketyspit Team!

Ruby, Andre, Nerea, Virginia  & Bridgeton Hub Families

Licketyspit Art Gallery

Click on the drawings!

Our Castlemilk families have many cool moves

When they hear music they can’t stop to groove –

Let’s dance some more! For a little bit longer!

Let’s get together in a fabulous CONGA!!

We also DRESS UP with gusto and style

Combining materials and sharing smiles

Today we decided to turn into PIRATES

but colourful ones – striking like parrots!

 

Haaris turned himself into Pirate Angel,

Anusha became Spy Pirate who spies on people,

Poppy was Mermaid Pirate and she looks for cool treasure,

Zara was Pirate Pretty who looks for treasure with Pirate Mermaid,

Rumaisa  decided to be Cool Pirate.

We also had wee pirates Massi, Udo and Ammar

And wee baby Ugo was the littlest one!

We blew up a Red Magic Ball and after much discussion on possible destinations we chanted the magic words…

MAGIC BALL
MAGIC BALL
TAKE US WHEN WE WANT TO GO…WHOOOSH!!

We landed on a beach…and there must have been a party going on somewhere because we could heard music  – so we immediately danced to the beach music! We couldn’t resist!

‘We are in Hawaii, it’s great!’ – shouted Pirate Pretty.

‘Ice cream anyone? –  Spy Pirate offered.

We all wanted some ice cream – Spy Pirate had bubble gum flavour.

We went into the ocean determined to find treasure as we swam and swam and swam… BUT there was a shark in the water! And then Pirate Taz got into trouble ! So we pulled her out as fast as we could!

‘We found some diamonds!’ – Pirate Pretty & Mermaid Pirate shouted.

‘It must be part of a famous Hawaii bigger treasure! If only we had the map to look for it!’

‘We do!’

While making sense of the treasure map, we suddenly heard a grumpy voice…

‘What are you doing with MY treasure map?!’

It was a Grumpy Pirate Captain. So cross with us!  and tired and a bit cranky…

‘Get in a line! Let me look at you lot’ – she shouted.

‘I am getting on, my knees hurt and I need to find some replacement for my ship…

‘Have  you ever worked on a ship?’

‘No!’ – said we.

‘Have you ever BEEN on a ship??’

‘No…’ – we admitted.

‘Oh dear…well, let’s get you started!’

So the Captain started to boss us, shouting lots of orders we had to follow!

‘Port! Starboard! Scrub the deck! Climb the rigging! Cook my dinner!’

It was tiring but we were actually quite good at being a pirate crew…

‘Ok, let’s try out some of you…YOU!’ – she pointed at  Pirate Muhammed

Pirate Muhammad took over being the Captain – ‘Poooooort!’

Then Cool Pirate – ‘ Make a pizza!’

Then Pirate Abu – ‘Mop the floor!’

We followed  the orders to the letter… and while mopping the floor Pirate Pretty screamed –

‘It smells disgusting!’

And she was right, it did!

But after all that hard work we could finally relax –

‘I have some Funky music, let’s play and dance!’ – So we did our crazy pirate dance!

‘Now…I’ll show you all where the big treasure is…right …..under there!!’.

We dug and dug until we found a chest containing…

 2000 coins!

And rubies!

And diamonds!

‘What shall we do with all this treasure??’

‘We could buy some go-karts in Costco!’

 ‘Great idea!’

So we all headed off to the Costco in Hawaii and got ourselves super cool go-karts of different colours and went for a spin!

It was  fantastic being a pirate crew but we realised we were starting to get a bit peckish.

So, we got back into the Magic Ball and returned to Castlemilk Library to do some Reflective Drawing to remember our adventure and get some nice grub in our tummies! ARRRRGH!!!

Sarah, Taz, Nerea, Virginia and the Castlemilk Hub Families

Licketyspit Art Gallery

Our Dressing Up bag

Full of colourful rags

That turn into magic

When we mix them all up!

 

Zoe , Maya, Rita, Arvin, Ada, Iris, Zac & Xiya let us into the magic of their dressing up imaginings…

‘I’m Princess Purple and this is my long hair. It helps people to climb up high and saves animals. My favourite is cake is chocolate.’

 ‘I’m a Ghost. I’ve been a ghost for 235 years. I ghost in a haunted cave, I get some people and I turn some into ghosts, some are vampires and some are zombies.’

 ‘I’m Officer William, I put people in jail. The last person robbed money from the bank, and I set a trap with a net to catch them. My favourite cake is sponge cake.’

 ‘My name is ‘I don’t know’. I’m in jail but I did nothing…’

 ‘I’m Grannie Swamp. I live nearby a swamp. I have bug spray. I have pancakes for breakfast and I make macaroons. I live in a tree house. And my macarons are Top Shelf!’

  ‘I’m Granny Dungeon. There’s no way I’m related to Granny Swamp! I live in the Edinburgh dungeon – I pretend to be a security guard and turn my face into nothing!’

 ‘I am a king, King Lion. Princess Purple is my princess. I live in a cave with bones and blood and I eat mice. I defeated the lion that attacked your Parrot Forest.’

 ‘I’m Mr Twin, I live in the big holiday place – I go with my friend Mali and there’s a water park and I have a pool.’

 

When Pedro The Parrot found a Magic Ball that Xiyu realised was green – there was nothing else left to do but to blow it big, climb inside and….WOOSH!!!

Maya opened the zip…

‘We’ve landed at the End Of The Rainbow!!’

‘Can you all hear that??’

We could hear singing…

‘Who are you?’ – we asked

‘ I’m going on the Yellow Brick Road for an adventure; would you like to come?’

Follow the Yellow Brick Road, Follow the Yellow Brick Road, follow, follow, follow, follow the Yellow Brick Road

 ‘Oh no look at this poor Scarecrow looking so sad! How can we help you?’

‘I’m quite a stuck and I’d love to be able to dance…’

Zoe started singing a wee sweet song and we realised we needed something a bit more…funky! So we sang Grandma, Grandma from the top of our voices and it worked!! The scarecrow started to boogie!!!

‘Hey look over there! Is that a rusty old bus?’ – Arvin shouted.

We all decided to go and have a look at it. It was rusty and dirty, and it looked abandoned.

‘I can see hyenas coming this way!!’ – Zoe had spotted a pack approaching.

‘Quick, let’s clean the bus up and see if we can escape in it! – Andre suggested

‘Who can drive this though? – Taz asked but Arvin was already at the wheel!

Narrow escape –  we were all relieved and ready to carry on when we encountered… a great BIG GHOST!

But instead of being scared we felt sorry for him because he was crying in a little ghostie voice!

‘He’s a ghost called Max and he is lost. He wants to go back home, and he lives in an island next to the sea’ – our very own Ghostie/Maya translated for us.

‘Wouldn’t it be great if we could help Max out? We need a boat! – said Pedro The Parrot.

‘I have a boat in my swamp’ – said Granny Swap /Ada– ‘ I’ll quickly use my portal to go back and get it and return’

Granny’s rowing boat was magnificent! We all rowed as hard as we could while Officer Wiliam/ Ritaand Granny Dungeon/Iris kept reassuring Ghostie Max that he would be fine.  Max was delighted when we got him back to his wee island and after saying goodbye we set off for Mini Village – where everyone is TINY!

We soon discovered that when you set foot in Mini Village, YOU also become TINY! and get a squeaky wee voice! However, it turned out that the tiny villagers weren’t that happy with their sizes…

 Scarecrow/Nerea asked if we could help them like we’d helped her? So we decided to make a potion to try to make everyone normal size again…

‘Bubble Bubble toil and trouble fire burn and cauldron bubble’

 A feather from a parrot

Onion and garlic and herbs

Straweberry nd a tiger tooth

Stir, stir and stir!

It worked!!! We all went back to our usual size and we cheered and we laughed!

Then suddenly, the greenest, biggest and loveliest Green Dragon appeared to give as a lift back home.

 

some of us climbed on his back

some held onto his tail

and some travelled under his belly

and up into the sky we flew…

‘The moon, the sky and the birds and a big sun and this is trees! That was the view from the sk,y when we were riding the dragon.’ 

 

Taz, Andre, Nerea, Virginia and the Maryhill Hub Families

Licketyspit Art Gallery

Our Bridgeton families were in excellent form for Session 2 of our Porridge & Play Block…

We warmed up making ourselves As Big As A Bear with Nerea and  played a round of Funky Chicken with Andre!

Then Taz took everyone through the story of Miss Mary Mac and then we all had a go at My Name Is Joe and realised that poor Joe works far too hard!!

Now, the Bridgeton Hub LOVES to dress up and let me tell you, they get so inspired when they do – they often TRANSFORM into completely different people with all sorts of skills, likings, opinions and even missions….

MIRIAM – ‘My name is Orange – I go to the supermarket, I entertain the kinds, I do dancing.’

 MOHAMMED – ‘ I’m Superhero Green, I like to eat green vegetables and save the day.’

 MAAB – ‘I’m a penguin and I live in a tomato. On Sunday afternoon I like to poo.’

 ALAN – ‘ I am cagey. On Sunday I like to kill on my phone. I like to eat a wee sandwich.’

 MARIAM –  ‘ I’m the Doodie, I like to watch my phone, I like chicken’

 AMAR – ‘I’m SuperBlack – I like to cook people and bananas’

 ALEEN –  ‘ I’ like strawberries, I like Meera the devil hunter’

 It is FANTASTIC how a few bits of dressing up combined with a good idea can inspire you to imagine yourself as someone completely different! That’s how actors create characters! Because acting it’s all pretty much about imagining yourself as somebody else which is very much how children PLAY!

Magic Ball

Magic Ball

Take us where we want to go

WOOOOSH!

The atmosphere was…well…different and we noticed that we were walking rather slowly…

We had landed in the MOON!!!

We met a wee alien Moon Person who looked a lot like Aleen and she gave us the answer to a very famous question – yes, we can confirm that the moon is made of cheese!

‘It feels hard when we step on it! – said Alan

‘ Maybe it is made of HARD cheese!- said Taz

Why don’t we taste it? – said Ritika

And we did!

After that we walked about doing Moon Walks of all sorts and  then met another Moon Person who didn’t like cheese but did like vegetables!

We fed him all sorts of nutritious veggies until he was stuffed. So we decided to show him how to dance by sharing our best moves. He was impressed and very grateful – so much so that he took us in a long Moon Conga to a Moon Party.

When we got there, he sang us a song  and in exchange we sang Jelly on His Head for him which he LOVED! We said goodbye to the Moon Person and the Moon Party and climbed back into the Magic Ball to get back to Bridgeton for our drawing, our meal and our Licketyspit Art Gallery.

A fantastic afternoon full of joy, play, imagination and FRIENDS!

Catch you next week!

Andre, Nerea, Taz, Johnny & Bridgeton Hub Families

Licketyspit Art Gallery

Click on the drawings!

It’s so hot outside, we are melting away

But in Castlemilk Library

We still STORYPLAY!

We giggle, we smile

We’re rolling with laughter

We enjoy a good play

And some nice food after!

Whatever the weather

We are getting together

To play with our friends

Imagining forever…

 A Sleepy Capibara, a Stinky Snake,

A Happy Cow smiling

and Dancing one as well.

 Our Dressing Up bag

Full of colourful rags

That turn into magic

When we mix them all up!

 A pair of old tights to wear on your head

A long bit that tied up will be your long tail

A red pair of trousers to wear round your waist

And some wee green t-shirt to cover your face…

Just some bits and bobs and imagination

And you are the Monster taking over a nation!

 We heard of some Grannies who live in the forest

They have groovy gardens with veggies and flowers –

 ‘ I’m Smart Granny – I live in a purple house and my garden has poppy flowers, star flowers and sunflowers. I like making chocolate chip cookies for breakfast!’

  ‘I’m Foxy Grannie – I live in a blue house. I grow potatoes in my garden, and some are magical and some are not. I hide the potatoes so no one can steal them. I like making candy for breakfast’

We played MONSTERS FOOTSTEPS

And gave them a fright

But they had a giggle and it was alright!

 We do love to draw all the things we imagine

We do love to eat together while laughing

We do love to show each other our art

At Porridge & Play we sure are SMART!

Sarah, Taz, Nerea and the Castlemilk Hub Families

Licketyspit Art Gallery

A Magic Ball Adventure from Maryhill to the JUNGLE!

‘Everyone ready…BLOW!’

A tiny rainbow Magic Ball had carefully been placed on the floor and now we were all surrounding it and blowing it up bigger so we could all climb inside…

‘It’s getting BIGGER…

And BIGGER…

And BIGGER…’

We carefully opened the zip in front of us and we climbed inside

‘Don’t forget to close the zip behind you”

We all gathered together inside the Magic Ball feeling excited and wondering where we could possibly go…

‘We could go to Land of Clouds’ – said Rita

‘Or to a Forest’ – said Zac

‘What about China’ – said Shirley

‘Or Hollywood’ – said Iris

‘Or the galaxy!’ – said Ada

But the brilliant thing about the Magic Ball is that you don’t know where you’ll end up until you land there!

‘Right everyone…let’s say the magic words!’

Magic Ball

Magic Ball

Takes us where we want to go…

WHOOOSH!

We landed and Zac and Maya were brave enough to open the zip to find out where we had landed this time…

‘We are in the jungle!’ they whispered!

Zac soon revealed himself as Master of the Jungle so he became our guide. We followed him all intrigued about exploring this jungle when suddenly…

A tall, green woman appeared!

She spoke a different language that nobody knew but somehow we were able to understand each other.

The Green Woman had a cave to hide inside from any danger and we all went inside.

It was quite cosy actually!

But the Green Woman suddenly looked very sad and quickly we worked out that she was hungry!

Arvin  mentioned he had a cabbage and Green Woman LOVED IT – then Zac had some meat but Green Woman didn’t want it.

‘She’s a vegetarian!’ – shouted Rita
.

Luckily for the Green Woman Shriyansh had carrots,  Zac had salad, Ada had avocado, Iris had broccoli and Arvin had more cabbage for her, so quickly the Green Woman was stuffed with nutritious veggies!

After our stay at the Green Woman’s cave we spotted an elephant, so of course we went over to have a good look.

The heat was so fierce that Taz really wanted to find some water to cool down…

“We need to go North…that way’ – Rita pointed, we turned round and there in front of us was a lovely big pond!

In we went for a swim so we could cool down a bit from the heat of the jungle.

‘I’ll call my dolphin friend with my whistle’ – said Ada

She blew it and a dolphin appeared to play with us in the water and offered us all a wee ride on his back! It was great fun but rather exhausting for him, as there were so many of us and after a wee while the poor dolphin started to collapse!

‘I ’m so tired! Please feed me! Feed me…CAKE’

We gave the dolphin some lovely cupcakes and lemon drizzle cake and off he swam again full of energy.

Virginia and Thrishitha had flying balloons and gave one to everyone, all have a lift back to where the Magic Ball was.

We climbed up inside it again and…

Magic Ball

Magic Ball

Takes us where we want to go… WOOOSH

We were back in Maryhill and ready to draw about our adventures and have our delicious meal together!

It had been another spectacular session.

Even before we found the Magic Ball, we had invented dances, been Big as a Bear, made a marvellous Mucky Brew; met a great crew of funny Funky animals AND transformed ourselves into all sorts of great characters with our Dressing-Up.

In Storyplay you really can be anyone, do anything and go anywhere. Anything can happen and it always does! Woo hoo!

And you never need to worry about having an idea. It just gets easier and easier to open your mouth and let all your fabulous ideas come tumbling out. When we do this together at Porridge & Play every adventure is different and rather unforgettable!

Isn’t it amazing what a group of families can do in a hall in Maryhill!

All we need to play is each other and our limitless imaginations!

Thanks for coming.

Taz, Nerea, Virginia and the Maryhill Hub Families

Licketyspit Art Gallery

Castlemilk Library is a very cool place

You can come to hang out, borrow books and to play!

Play? Play, you say?

Well…YES! Castlemilk Library has been hosting Licketyspit’s Porridge & Play for five years now – so once a year we get together with some Castlemilk families at the library for 5 weeks in a row, to Storyplay, eat and hang out together and this is also a chance for new families to learn to Storyplay and join Licketyspit’s Children & Families Network family!

So, for our first session of Porridge & Play this block we had Caroline, Poppy, Jacqueline, Evie, Sayeda, Abu, Sobia, Rumaisa ,Haaris, Shabana, Anusha, & Ammar with us again and Chioma, Udo, Ugo, Jodie & Leo coming for the very first time!

What a joy to see some old friends again and to meet new ones! The best thing about Porridge & Play is – you NEVER run out of friends.

Now, have you ever played beach ball with a Dragon while flying up high on a Flying Balloon? WE DID EXACTLY THAT!!

We blew up our Flying Balloons – they came in many colours!- and flew all over Castlemilk…What a view!

We were so high that at some point we could REALLY feel the cold but luckily Anusha had brought jackets and hats for us all and Caroline had some fluffy socks for everyone too.

‘What’s that down there? – Taz said

Beach balls! – Caroline shouted’

Caroline saw beach balls all over the place and it turned out that a dragon down below was throwing beach balls up in the hope someone would play ball with her! So we did!

First up Caroline caught a beach ball, threw it back down and….whoosh! up it came again for Poppy to catch!

Then Poppy threw it back down and ….whoosh! Up it came again for Haaris to catch!

Then Haaris threw it back down and…whoosh! Up it came again for Ammar to catch!

Then Ammar threw it back down and…whoosh! Up it came again for Rumaisa to catch!

Then Rumaisa threw it back down and…whoosh! Up it came again for Evie to catch!

We all had go at the Dragon Beach Ball game until the Dragon got tired and cooked a barbecue instead!

Do you like dressing up? Well, we LOVE IT at Porridge & Play but what we really like to do is to dress up the Licketyspit way…

Our Dressing Up style is out of this world even though we use random bits and bobs – we use old clothes that we have in the house, or clothes that are too wee, or any type of clothes we have and we wear them in interesting ways to create all sort of characters!

This week at Porridge & Play we all became Castlemilk Grannies.

And what an stupendous collection of Grannies we were!

 Anusha was Granny Hungry who likes to eat humans – Dangerous Granny! Poppy was Sporty Granny who really likes running – Fast Granny! Ammar was Granny Greg who really likes going – Busy Granny! Rumaisa was Granny Skeleton who enjoys scaring people! – Naughty Granny! Abu was Cooking Granny who likes making cakes – Delicious Granny! Haaris was Mr Coin who likes swimming in a pool – Not even a Granny! Caroline was Funky Granny who loves shopping and going to the Bingo – Leisure Granny!

All that playing always makes us hungry so after doing a bit of Reflecting Drawing to draw about what we’d liked best today, we sat down to lovely fruit, cheese, bread, boiled eggs and tomatoes and we all enjoyed a chilled meal together chatting and sharing!

After food the Licketyspit Art Gallery saw everyone telling each other about their drawings. We all cheered and clapped – which makes us all feel great about ourselves and our friends! HURRAY FOR PORRIDGE & PLAY!

See you all next Thursday for more adventures and fun at Castlemilk Library!

Sarah, Taz, Nerea, Virginia and the Castlemilk Hub Families

Licketyspit Art Gallery

We are so happy to be back in Maryhill for a new Porridge & Play block of sessions – and the Maryhill families were on excellent form at our first session!

(we recommend that you read this out loud!)

Hello, hello, hello! to one and all,

Welcome to Maryhill Hub,

We get together at Porridge & Play,

To play and to have a good laugh!

Some of us are new, some have come before,

But we all like to Storyplay!

To go on adventures, to meet all our friends

And to have a jolly good day!

We get in a circle,

Cause circles are great,

To keep everybody involved,

You see everyone,

Everybody sees you,

And that is the best thing of all!

Cause playing together is all that we need,

To keep any boredom away,

A bunch of your pals,

Your imagination

And you’re ready for STORYPLAY!

We had balloons of all sorts of colours,

Balloons with patterns and shapes.

We blew them all up just as big as we could,

So they could lift us and fly us away!

We flew high in the sky over Maryhill Rd,

And soon high above the Canal

We were looking around when Zoe just shouted – that’s an elephant!

The elephant was,

believe it or not,

enjoying sometime on a boat!

And not just for fun,

but at the same time,

hiding from an alligator!

Then Zac saw a lion,

Also on the boat,

Shriyansh said the lion was dancing,

Iris saw a nice bowl of porridge, and so

Naturally we went down to taste it!

Rita’s porridge tasted of broccoli, Taz’s of toffee and onion

But Iris’ tasted like pancakes…THEN

Suddenly we,

Were over the sea!

Xiyu said he could see something…

We saw dust, we saw sea, we saw so many birds!

Then we spied a Red Monster,

Brushing her hair!

And a Red Dragon too,

Not seeming to mind,

All was calm all was nice all was kind!

But the Dragon was peckish and ready to pounce

To enjoy a nice Red Monster Snack!

We had to do something, let’s fly down to help!

And cleverly we made up a plan…

Gently we landed on a rowing boat,

And we rowed quite close to the Dragon…

To make a huge splash!

Give the Dragon a fright!

And rescue the Monster from being a snack!

It worked! It worked! The Dragon was gone!

We managed to help the Red Monster!

Then we all flew back home to Community Hall,

For Drawing,

and a delicious feast!

YUM!

But not before we had Dressed up as amazing Maryhill Grannies and learned the cool Grandma Song….

More adventures to come next Wednesday!

We can’t wait to see you all again!

Taz, Andre, Nerea, Virginia and the Maryhill Hub Families

Licketyspit Art Gallery

Licketyspit’s Porridge & Play is back in Bridgeton with old and new friends and SO many new adventures to have together!

How lovely to see returning Bridgeton families and welcome some new families! 

There were big smiles and hugs galore! We were all so happy to be together again! And we discovered that some of us have got a lot taller!! Everyone was on great form and looking forward to Storyplay.

Our circle was BIG so we all took a moment to say our names and to welcome our new pals – Rikita & Girisha, Ghada, Mohammed & Amar, Lina, Aleen & baby Maysa and Mudathir & Ibrahim!

Then we made our selves as Big As A Bear! We love to warm up our bodies, voices and imaginations before playing all together – grown-ups and children!

Funky Chicken was packed with fabulous imaginings – Summer kicked us off with a Funky Chicken and Mabb created the Cheeky Frog. Salah imagined a Hungry Tiger and Amar a Fox Eating Cheetah. Girsha introduced us to a Snappy Crocodile whereas Aleen‘s Crocodile was sleepy! instead. Emilia became a Fast Horsey and Alan invented a rather funny Stupid Crocodile!

Pick Up A Balloon!

With every puff of air our colourful balloons grew bigger and bigger until suddenly we were up on our tiptoes ready for a last blow to take us all up, up high in the sky and over Bridgeton – the view from up there was breathtaking! As we flew over Glasgow Green we spotted a dinosaur party and a ladybug party – we could hear trumpets and drums! There were frogs all over the ground and we even spotted a spider! – it must have been a great huge one…wow! Then the Naughty Seagull popped our balloons and we fell down to the ground!

Where might we fly next? – to space? to New York City? what about planet Venus? WOW – we might see an astronaut, the moon, and many countries like Africa …or Sudan (which we love!)

So we blew up our balloons and off we went. Higher and higher we flew! So so high that suddenly we could see Portugal….and soon after that we found we could see Sudan …..and then………a UFO!

 We descended a bit to see the sea, where we saw mermaids ….and sharks! So we dared each other to tickle a shark. Down we all flew and that’s exactly what we did!

Dress up the Licketyspit way!

We found our big bag of dressing-up clothes and we transformed ourselves into a marvellous collection of Bridgeton Grannies! There was Rainbow Granny, Robot Granny, Granny Duck who lives in a straw house!. Granny Butterfly with her big ears, who lives on a boat and eats cereal, I’ll have you know! We met Grannie Biscuits, Cool Granny, Robot grannie – who lives on a boat, a Flying Granny and Grannie Fatma – who lives in a hut in the forest. Laughing Granny said she liked to sit on a chair to relax and Granny Arafa told us she likes making Art! There was a Granny who lives on an island too – where there is water everywhere! Who would have thought that Bridgeton had so many Grannies who are so different, so cool and so fun!!!

 Let’s eat together!

A highlight of Porridge & Play is the delicious food we all eat together round our big spotty table! It is great fun because we get to chat to each other and each week we get to know everyone better, which makes us all happy and fuzzy inside. What could be better than a good time with tasty food and a bunch of your pals?

And that was just Session 1 of this Porridge & Play block! See you all in for Session 2 …Toodleloo!

Andre, Nerea, Taz, Virginia, Johnny & the Bridgeton Hub families!

Licketyspit Art Gallery

Click on the drawings!

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!