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Week 2 of Porridge & Play Bridgeton!!

lickspit — Mon, 21 Mar 2022 12:09:03 +0000

Find out what the Bridgeton group get up to in their Porridge & Play Hub adventures each week! Porridge & Play is running throughout 2022 with this six week block being the first of many great tales!

Blog posts are written by André!

Week 2 of Bridgeton Porridge & Play!!

Friday 18th March

We had an amazing time on Friday 18^th March with our lovely Porridge and Play families! We sang lots of fun songs & rhymes together and it was a delight to see everyone playing. We played some of our favourite games including Big as a Bear, Funky Chicken, Hello, My Name Is Joe, Dressing Up, Witches Fingers, Jelly On His Head and Grandma Grandma! What a week packed full of fun!

Once again we had a glorious spread of food to share round the table which gives all our families time to catch up and talk to one another about the week they’ve had. We love having conversations with all of our families and hearing about how our games are being played at home, Moira said “They wee tunes are catching, I will be hearing them in my sleep!” We heard some of you love playing Funky Chicken before bed!

Leeanne said that “Lexi’s been playing all week, she keeps shouting “Do you know the Funky Chicken?’ at me when we’re walking down the street and I have to do it.” We are so happy that the way we play has continued well after we have finished playing as a big group!

Big as a Bear and Funky Chicken was an absolute hoot this week! Our youngest members Emilia & Maab clapped along to Grandma Grandma which was brilliant too, showing that everyone can experience the magic of play!

Some of our favourite moments at the Porridge & Play Bridgeton?

‘This a man, this is the Funky Chicken, that was my favourite game .’

Niamate

‘A house and a flower and a rainbow.’

Zainah

‘The balloon going up in the air and seeing the sharks and the trees.’

Emilia & Moria

‘Strawberries and balloons and a shark.’

Lexi

‘That’s a siren head fighting a tornado. Grandma Grandma is my favourite.’

Alan

‘Shark that we saw in balloons. (Another picture she did with Caitlin & Mariam) – a watermelon, an apple and a banana.’

Malek

‘Giant, Saw it when I was up in the sky in the balloons. She was eating chocolate. She was a bad one and it tried to get me. My favourite games was the balloon game.’

Rayna

Some more fun games!!

Rayna told us all about it – “Buttons, joe from the factory buttons,” going on to say “Pressing the buttons” was her favourite part of the session.

Dressing up was a real highlight for us, as everyone was so creative as we dressed up as witches! We loved witch Niamate who was fantastic at really understanding that you can make a costume out of anything! That’s how we like to dress up at Licketyspit! You can take a t-shirt or anything lying around the house and create a fabulous costume right from your imagination.

We even got to meet fun characters who like to wear strange things… like Fred with Jelly on his Head! For some of our participants it would have been the first time that they have heard of our friends but that did not stop the likes of Summer who was having a blast doing the actions for Jelly On His Head which was a real joy too see!

We had to end with a Grandma Grandma. Malek & Mariam went straight into the rhyme remembering it from last week, what a treat! But, before we knew it we needed to go back inside as we did not want to miss Reflective Drawing!

We had so much fun playing with you all at Church House for our second week of Porridge & Play Bridgeton! We can’t wait to have even more fun next time!

By André and the Bridgeton Hub

The Licketyspit Art Gallery!

In Partnership With

Porridge & Play Bridgeton is a New Scots Integration Project by Licketyspit, in collaboration with Church House.

What’s Next?

Porridge & Play Bridgeton is a New Scots Integration Project that will be running throughout 2022! We will be starting Picnic & Play in May and we can’t wait to go on even more adventures!

Keep up with the Bridgeton Groups adventures here! And keep a look out for Picnic & Play updates coming!

We would love to hear any ideas you have for places to visit for Picnic & Play!

Tell us your ideas for Picnic & Play!!

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Storyplay City Week 2 – Amy & Adie

lickspit — Tue, 02 Feb 2021 17:26:00 +0000

Welcome to the Porridge & Play Online blog Storyplay City edition, 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.

Scots Song & Kpanlogo Rhythms!

What an exciting second week…Singing in Scots and Ga, making kitchen drum-kits and dancing!!

Burns Night celebrations are known all around the world and at Licketyspit we thought that we should celebrate it bringing together Scottish cultures old & new!

With support from BEMIS, we were very lucky to be joined by Amy Geddes and Adie Baako. They combined Scots song with Ghanaian Kpanlogo drumming and dancing for a session like no other. Our beats were so irresistible that even the littlest ones like Sam and Daniel and Fatima and Faith had to join in!

Read the blog below for a reminder of the song word, how to make a kitchen drumkit & more!

At the start of the session, Amy showed us how to make kitchen drum-kits using cardboard boxes and some wooden spoons, and shakers by filling a jar half full with pasta or rice! It just shows, you can make a kitchen drum-kit out of almost anything!

Adie then taught us some Ghanaian Kpanlogo drum rhythms. A Kpanglogo is a big drum from Ghana.

Amy told us that Scots is a very old language in Scotland, most famously known in the poems written by Robert Burns, our national poet. She taught us a Scots song called Macaphee which is written in the Scots language with some nonsense words!

Macaphee Song Words

to the tune of Mrs MacLeod of Raasay

Macaphee turn the cattle roon loch a forun.

Here and there and everywhere, the kye are in the corn!

Waiting at the shielin o Mhairi bhan mo chrì

Waiting at the shielin, oh far away to sea.

Hame will come the bonnie boats, Mhairi bhan mo chrì

Hame will come the bonny lads, hi ho and hee!

How to Make a Kitchen Drumkit

Here are the meanings of some of the words!

Macaphee – the Scottish surname MacPhee
roon – round
loch a forun – no one seems to know of a loch by this name! It is thought that this song is made up from a Gaelic version, so it is likely to be a corruption of a Gaelic language phrase.
kye – cattle or cows
shielin – a hut or a shelter on farmland
Mhairi bhan mo chrì – fair Mairi my love
hame – home
bonnie – pretty

1, 2, 3, 4…The Languages of Porridge & Play

We counted 1, 2, 3, 4 to keep ourselves in time – Amy counted in Scots andAdie counted in Ga. Then our play experts shared some of their languages. Felicia and Adeela showed us how to count in Joroba, a language of Nigeria, Erin in Shona, a language from Zimbabwe, Sara in Kurdish and Abdal showed us in Arabic!

So many languages!

Brilliant Dancing

We had to move our bodies next so we got up and danced with Adie! We picked the apples from the tree, said our prayers, rolled our arms and wiggled our hips! What brilliant dancers you all are!

Having Amy and Adie coming to teach us about playing rhythms and singing together made me think of how beautiful it is to have many languages and many cultures that like magic doors lead us into new music, stories, dances and games.

Let’s keep opening new doors to fantastic adventures to learn about ourselves, others and the big wide world!

Taz & Iona

About Amy & Adie

Amy Geddes is a Scottish Traditional Musician and expert music teacher. Find out more about here at www.amygeddes.co.uk. She is also a Licketyspit Associate Artist and is part of ABC Music – a really cool organisation called which has an app and lots of videos to help you play more music at home.

Adie Baako is a professional Dancer from Ghana. He dances to Kpanlogo rhythms and sometimes he drums them too! Find out more about his group Akrowa UK here. Adie first danced with us at Porridge & Play in 2020 – read the blog here.

ABC Music

Amy also works at ABC Music – find their website and other musical activities to try at home by clicking on the image below!

Music Broth

If you are interested in learning a musical instrument Music Broth in Glasgow also lends them out.

The post Storyplay City Week 2 – Amy & Adie appeared first on Licketyspit.

Storyplay City Week 1 – New Years Cake Recipe

lickspit — Tue, 26 Jan 2021 12:36:54 +0000

Welcome back!!

Porridge & Play Online is back but from Jan-March 2021 it’s running as part of Storyplay City – a new project funded by Glasgow Council, with support from Bemis and the Scottish Government. One of the reasons why we are very excited about this new block of Porridge & Play sessions is that this time round we are going to be playing with families who have been taking part for quite some time now, which means that we can explore new horizons and find out what other wonderful ideas we all have inside us ready to come out through play.

We will still warm up and dance, draw and share our art, play our Lickety Playcard games, but we are also going to dive into stories and burst out of them! Find out where we go each week in our blogs.

Wednesday

20th January 2021

On Wednesday we were joined by 16 families! We jumped around with Joe in the Button Factory, met Nuo Xuan’s Secret Bunny and Muiz’s Funky Cat! We had a lovely stretch as part of our dancing warm up and got grooving to some wonderful Malian Kora music! Wohoo!

Since we’ve just started a new year we decided to make a NEW YEAR’S CAKE! So we all got our aprons on and grabbed a wooden spoon to come up with a brilliant recipe:

NEW YEAR’S CAKE RECIPE

INGREDIENTS

1 slice of sunshine (Taz)
1 trip to the beach with friends (Andre)
1 set of fairy wings (Aroush)
A sprinkle of love (Javier)
1 jar of help (Felicia)
A few tasty treats (Michris)
A big vanilla (Brown)
A little bit of music (Lily)
A big bottle of all the good things we used to live with! (Christelle)
20 bottles of vanilla ice cream (Yumna)
A big bottle of Milk (Junior)

METHOD

Strum the strings of a guitar and empty the music into the bowl. Then get a big bottle of all the things we used to live with, take corona virus out and pour the rest in! Pour all of the other ingredients in and then mix! Bake in the oven for 10 seconds! When it has cooled, decorate the cake with 2021 candles (Areeb) and then enjoy with a cup of tea! Ta da!

Remember you can make your own recipe for a New Year Cake with anything you like!!

After we were all full of cake we did some reflective drawing. Brown drew a puppy with a ball and then showed us that he was in fact dressed like the puppy! And Tia drew a rocket!

We then had a fantastic performance from Lily, who recited the Scots poem ‘A Dug’s a Dug’ by Bill Keys. Next week we have a very special session with Adie and Amy all about the Scots poet Robert Burns! There will be Scots singing, Kpanlogo rhythms, kitchen drum-kits and more!

See you next week!

Iona

Thursday

21st January 2021

HAPPY NEW YEAR AND BIG LOVELY SMILES

A new year begins and Licketyspit is back with new energy and big ideas ready to meet our friends on Zoom for another 9 weeks of adventures!

Iona, Andre and I were delighted to welcome back our families that will be joining us on Thursdays. When we open our online Play Sessions it always feels like we are opening the door of our Home and it is brilliant to see big smiles, siblings of all ages, mums and dads and even pets so happy to say hi and to come over into our Licketyworld of imaginary play.

Of course, we haven’t seen each other since the Holiday break and everyone had wee stories about what they had been doing…it seems like many enjoyed the snow while it was there!

This first week our imaginary adventure involved the making of a very special New Year Cake.

We are all going through a difficult time at the moment with schools closed for now and many other fun things that we usually do not really happening as we need to keep everyone safe and sound so…we thought that perhaps baking a New Year Cake full of good wishes for 2021 would help!

THURSDAY’S NEW YEAR’S CAKE

Sprinkles of Kindness
A bit of good luck
A jar of good grades
And 7 new friends
Surrounded by raspberries, strawberries and grapes!
A little flour and sugar as well
Excitement, marshmallow, bananas in chunks
Vanilla Air freshener mixed with candy floss
More sunshine and happiness

Now stir it all in…

Let’s bake a new year sprinkled with love!

That was an absolutely top recipe to make sure that this year is a great one for us all. Not bad for Weeek One, eh?!

Iona, Andre and I are looking forward to meet up with our Thursday pals next time for some Burn’s Night surprises with our very special guests Adie and Amy!

Don’t miss it!!!

Taz

Saturday

22nd January 2021

For our first Saturday back we were joined by Amy & Adie for a very special Burns Session of Scots Song and Kpanlogo Drumming! We’ll tell you all about it next week, because we don’t want to spoil the surprise for the Wednesday and Thursday groups!

Children’s Rights Bill Gets Unanimous Approval!

The Scottish Parliament held a debate about the UNCRC Incorporation (Children’s Rights) Bill on Tuesday 19th January 2021, and we are delighted that the bill was unanimously approved at Stage 1. All our MSPs are standing up for children’s rights!

We are also thrilled that Gillian Martin MSP spoke about her time with Licketyspit Children & Families at our Have Your Say Through Play event in November! You can watch what she said below and the full debate here.

They have also published a report on the evidence they’ve heard so far from children and young people and children’s organisations. Read the report here.

“Taking part in games and songs about children’s rights it was clear to me that even the youngest children can get a handle on their rights if the communication is appropriate.” Gillian Martin MSP, Have Your Say Through Play Consultation

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Happy Holidays! A Festive Final Week

lickspit — Wed, 16 Dec 2020 15:13:57 +0000

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 final session! We played the PRESENT GAME where one present can transform into lots of wonderful things!! Kamila & Saif turned their present into a Christmas tree and gave it to Muhammed who turned it into a candy cane who gave it to Muizza who turned it into a magic snow tree who gave it to Tobi who transformed it into a MAGIC BALL…

We landed in the North Pole and immediately got attacked by hundreds of snowballs thrown by the huge Snowman Monster! Adesire spoke to him in snow language but he wouldn’t stop throwing them – so we all threw snowballs back and ran away!! We found an igloo to take shelter in and on the way in we came across a sleeping polar bear! We gently reached out our hands and stroked it. The polar bear made satisfied snoring sounds and it slept peacefully! In the igloo we met Betty Clause who handed out mince pies and cocoa! Fatou’s mince pie tasted of mushrooms and cinnamon and ginger and Modou’s had a meatball inside!

Then Betty told us that all of the reindeer had escaped! Oh no!! Luckily Amanda had loads of rope which meant that we could lassoo them down! We each caught a reindeer and were just getting ready to ride off when we suddenly met a very sad Rudolf!! Meerab spoke to Rudolf in reindeer language and discovered that he was really hungry!!

So Sarra & Jassim & Hawaa popped a malteser into Rudolf’s mouth and he was tranformed! Happily leaping around! So we all climbed on our reindeer’s back and flew and flew and flew. When we landed we found some magic stars and made wishes for the new year! We danced on the snow and music began to play, how happy we were!!

Wednesday

‘Christmas on his head? Christmas on his head? How can he sleep at night with Christmas on his head?!’

What a fabulously festive session we had on Wednesday! We met Polly who went to bed with a pillow full of holly OUCH! We danced a festive dance! We had a snowball fight in the Magic Ball! And Andre even gave Abdullah a whole forest! Wow! We didn’t play the Funky Chicken this week… but we did play the FUNKY TURKEY!!

We met all kinds of hilarious and festive characters! Lily Rose’s Cheeky Elf, Nuo Xuan’s Slippery Cat , Emma & Christelle’s Funny Santa, Sara’s Christmas Bunny , Franky’s Christmas Present , Javier’s Christmas Reindeer , Felicia’s Christmas Chicken and Sayeh’s Christmas Parrot!

There was also the Smelly Sprout, the Greedy Pudding and the Squashed Pea that went… SPLAT!!

Thursday

‘I think I know a boy, I think his name is Timmy, I think he goes to bed at night with… Santa in his chimney!!’

A brilliant final Thursday session was had, so much festive cheer, fabulous dressing up, and even an appearance from Ayaan the red-nosed reindeer! In ‘Christmas on His Head’ Emmanuel made up a verse about Rose who went to bed with tinsel on her toes, and Eshal went to bed with Brussel sprouts on his eyes!! He he!

In the MAGIC BALL we landed in the biggest snowball fight in the world! We had to take shelter and after a quick ice lolly from Sanjay , Gyan & Agyei suggested we take shelter in an Igloo! We marched quickly to the igloo but on the way Iona got stuck in the snow so we all had to pull her out! The lovely Igloo lady appeared and invited us in, which involved crawling through a narrow tunnel. We wondered about making a fire to warm up but she thought it might melt the Igloo… eek! Suddenly, out of nowhere, Rudolf appeared (Azaan) with his sister reindeer (Eshal) and he spoke in reindeer language! Luckily Emmanuel understood what he was saying, and translated for us all. Rudolf was inviting us on his sleigh!!! So off we flew high into the starry night, dropping presents onto the houses below!

What a magical year we’ve had playing with you all.

Have a brilliant holiday and we will see you in the New Year!

Hooray for play!

CHRISTMAS VIDEO

Merry Christmas & a Wonderful New Year from all of us at Licketyspit!

Christmas video coming soon…watch this space!

WEE VOICES, BIG IDEAS

This year, 1,000s of children your age from across Scotland told Children’s Parliament what issues are most important to them and what ‘Big Problems’ they want Scotland to solve. Children’s Parliament wants to hear your Big Ideas about what Scotland needs to do to solve 4 of these problems:

Discrimination
Climate Change
Poverty
Digital Inequality

If you’d like to share your BIG IDEAS you can send them by drawing or writing on the pre-paid postcards Ruby will be dropping off. To take part please contact Ruby.

Contact Ruby to Share your Big Ideas

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

lickspit — Tue, 08 Dec 2020 14:01:02 +0000

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 wrote to her blanket, she loves her blanket because it keeps her warm! Taiwo wrote to his mum!

Such beautiful letters and so full of love!

Next week is our final Porridge & Play Saturday session until January, so make sure you join us! I believe it’s going to be rather CHRISTMASSY!!! Ho ho ho!

Wednesday

11 families joined us yesterday for a brilliant Wednesday session!

In the FUNKY CHICKEN we met Javier’s Funky Dog, Lily Rose’s Cheeky Elf, Brown’s Buzzy Bee, Sara’s Happy Bunny, Jinru’s Happy Cat, Nuo Xuan’s Sneaky Snake, Emma’s Funky Elephant, Felicia’s Scary Bat, Ameen’s Angry Bear, Sayeh’s Tweety Parrot and Leo’s Baby Shark!

Then, in I SENT A LETTER TO MY LOVE, we wrote and then posted our letters to our loves, singing the song. Taz wrote a letter to her love… pizza! She wrote that she loves pizza because it is shaped like the moon and tastes like cheese! Andre wrote a letter to his friend Pete, and Sara wrote a letter to her friends, her mum and dad and her new teachers! Sayeh wrote to Honey her pet parrot! Felicia wrote to Iona and Taz! And Lily Rose wrote ‘dear my lovely elf, Merry Christmas!’

Thursday

It had been very chilly day this week, so we put a lot of effort and energy into a fantastic WARM UP! We started with BIG AS A BEAR when we… ran as fast as a hare, quacked like a duck, then stretched to the ceiling. Gyan pointed out that warm-ups are so important because they make us feel comfortable and welcome. We agree!

After an extremely creative FUNKY CHICKEN, Iona announced that we had to dress up for a special occasion… a game of I SENT A LETTER TO MY LOVE. Iona wrote her letter to her pillow, for being so soft and comfy! Mahek wrote a letter to pizza, for being so tasty! Agyei wrote a letter to milk, which he has in his cereal every morning! Mercy wrote her letter to her lovely daughters, and Areeb wrote a letter to his dad, who always listens to him!

NEW ACTIVITY VIDEO

Inspiration for outdoors play ideas in Exploring with Jack & Iona

There are so many benefits to getting outdoors, as well as to playing and using our imagination – so it’s no surprise that when we combine the two, those benefits are intensified! Our latest Exploring with Jack film shows the limitless adventures that we can have when we add our imaginations to outdoors play – why not watch it as a family and get inspired?

When Jack opens his Magic Map this time, a tiny Iona falls out! Iona has landed in the Kingdom of Woodland – join her as she makes a sleeping mud potion for an ancient wolf, plays the tree orchestra, and more!

So, what are you waiting for? Get outside and you might be amazed at the adventures you can dream up from your surroundings – and then, when you get back, you can draw pictures or write about it in your Explorers Journal! Remember to send any pictures to cfn@licketyspit.com and we’ll share them with everyone!

The Kingdom of Woodland

LICKETY PLAY CHAMPIONS

“With no immediate family around, Licketyspit has been like my extended family. I have met so many friends and as a migrant mum I have found lots of things in common with the other families. I will never forget that first warm welcome. It’s the reason we and so many other families keep coming back.”

We were thrilled to hear what Lickety Play Champion mum Boatemaa had to say about her family’s experience of Big Porridge & Play in this interview with the National Lottery Community Fund.

The Community Fund enabled us to offer even more across the pandemic, delivering 72 online play sessions to our community of 120 fantastic families. It’s been wonderful to hear feedback from members of our Children & Families Network, and we’re so grateful to Boatemaa for sharing her specific insights into the importance of this project – for both children and parents.

Read the full interview

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

lickspit — Wed, 02 Dec 2020 15:49:02 +0000

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 Ball, we landed on top of windy Mount Everest, the highest mountain in the world! Suddenly, Iona spotted a great big purple dinosaur coming up the mountain! Arghhhh! Tobi and Marvellous quickly handed out jet packs, and off the mountain we flew…

Junior spotted Glasgow in the distance and Princess saw people walking their pet tigers! We were flying so high in the sky when Granny Rainbow suddenly popped out from behind a cloud, riding on her unicorn! We asked how we could get to Rainbow Land, and she tapped her unicorn’s horn three times and hundreds of unicorns appeared!

We all got on a unicorn each and they flew us speedily down to Rainbow Land and dropped us inside a great big lollipop! It tasted of strawberries, oranges, and Ronald’s even tasted like beetroot! We had to get out, so Tobi suggested we use a great big rope… but we needed someone really strong to pull us out. Luckily, we had Brown who came to the rescue! He pulled and pulled until we were free, hooray!

We slid down the rainbow slide onto a beautiful beach. We were having a lovely swim until lots of sharks appeared, so we ran out and had a quick ice cream before jumping back in the Magic Ball.

Phew! What an exhilarating adventure, thanks to everyone’s brilliant ideas!

Iona

CHILDREN’S RIGHTS CONSULTATION

Have Your Say Through Play – a glimpse of what happened!

As you may know, we recently delivered a consultation session where we asked children to share their experiences of the coronavirus pandemic using their own language – PLAY!

Have Your Say Through Play was a brilliant experience. We had such a great time playing together in the same ways we usually do, and our guests from the Scottish Government and Scottish Parliament went away with a better idea of what children had been feeling and experiencing over the last year, expressed in their words and actions. Our video is a glimpse of what happened during our sessions, as well as how this relates to children’s rights – and how important it is to protect them. Enjoy!

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Dancing and singing with Adie Baako!

lickspit — Mon, 23 Nov 2020 18:35:14 +0000

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 Adie!

The heat in his village in Ghana would bring everyone outside, and growing up with no electricity, TV or screens meant that they had to make their own entertainment. So, all the villagers would gather in a circle and they would drum and sing and dance!

When Adie was in his last year at school, he asked his Dad about becoming a professional dancer. “You must do what you love doing”, he said – and that’s how Adie joined his first dance troupe. He then trained with a very famous Ghanaian master who teaches artists from all over the world. In 2014, Adie came to Scotland during the Commonwealth Games. “I love Scotland, people are so nice. And I like haggis! But I sometimes miss the Ghanaian weather…” he told us, smiling.

What we did in the session

First of all, Adie performed for us along to some fantastic Ghanaian music. Then he taught us a song all about bringing your calabash to be filled up with PORRIDGE! He taught us that ‘calabash’ is the name for all different sizes of pumpkin. Calabash husks are used for many things – as plates and bowls, and to make jewellery, clothing and even musical instruments and toys! In the song, the porridge seller comes to the village and calls out “everybody, everybody! Bring your calabash, bring your calabash! Mofee mu ke tiene aba, mofee mu ke tiene aba, Waya waya nu koko, waya waya nu koko!” It was the perfect song for our Porridge & Play Sessions because of course, we LOVE porridge!

During the song Adie played his wee calabash, which are used to make shakers – a percussive musical instrument – but he told us that originally, the small pumpkins were used by the grandfathers to keep their tobacco in! Then the children would use wee calabash to make toys for themselves, finally turning them into rhythm shakers!

We also learnt a whole dance routine, and Adie gave us good ideas to remember each move, such as…

Move your arm like a screen-wiper in a car
Pick up an apple from the tree and give it to Mum
‘Roll and show’
Say your prayers
Wiggle your hips in a circle!

We got really good at each move first, and then we put them all together with music and performed our dance TOGETHER! What fantastic dancers everyone turned out to be!

We also had time to ask Adie some questions about his dancing, his costumes, his homeland and his travels – everyone had lots of questions and was very chatty, which was a lovely welcome to the group for Adie. “Does your family dance like that?”, we asked him. “Of course!”, he said. “It’s in our blood! Everyone sings and dances!” Adie told us his favourite food is fufu, which he said is a bit like mashed potato! We were all transfixed. Adie’s descriptions of his country and his village, his stories, the music and the dancing – together with our imaginations – painted a perfect picture. We could almost feel the heat of the Ghanaian sun!

Many thanks to Adie for sharing with us – and to our Big Porridge & Play participants for being so welcoming and doing such fantastic dancing! Bravo!

Iona

LICKETY CHAMPIONS

Exploring with Zainab!

Inspired by our Exploring with Jack video series, we were thrilled when Zainab, one of our Children & Families Network members, sent us her own ‘Exploring with’ video over the summer. This week, we were delighted to receive her THIRD one! This time, you can join her on a virtual adventure to Djibouti, the third smallest country in Africa. Watch out for whale sharks, Lac’Assal – Crater Lake, and Moucha Island! A huge thank you to Zainab, one of our Lickety Champions, for sharing her creativity and knowledge with us.

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Andre and Taz share this week’s BPPG highlights!

lickspit — Tue, 17 Nov 2020 09:33:07 +0000

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 the deck! Climb that rigging!” It must be said that Awful & Lovely Captain Andre was a little nicer and got us all eating our grub or drinking our grog! One by one the mean Pirates had us all cleaning the ship and walking the plank several times, BUT – when the order “dig for treasure!” came along the motley crew could not hold their enthusiasm and the dig, dig, digging took us to TREASURE!

After an incredible adventure with the MAGIC BALL, we were ready to start our Reflective Drawing. The Licketyspit Art Gallery was as colourful and exuberant as the artists who produced stunning pictures about our adventures!

Taz

Thursday

On Thursday, when we opened the zip after finding the MAGIC BALL we realised we’d landed in a very dark place. “Feel the walls”, said Virginia – and they were sticky! Marlo soon realised they were made of chocolate and sweeties, so we all ate a bit too much of those!

Then Virginia found what it looked a tunnel, and of course we all followed her in. It got smaller and smaller and smaller…ARGH! We were falling and suddenly there we were inside a cave underneath the sea!

“I can see an octopus! What can you see Sanjay?” But there was no sign of Sanjay. Instead, a funky-looking octopus started speaking to us in Octopus language – and Gyan and Agyei saved the day as they are fluent in Octopus!

After going towards a bright light that we could see ahead of us, we entered a huge room full of lights, music, and PIRATES having a party! We had a quick pirate sword fight then Sanjay realised we were standing on slime. We couldn’t move! In fact, we were sinking!

Eshal recommended holding to a big rock and pull so we could get out and as we were rescuing ourselves from the slime, Mahek spotted treasure – being guarded by a great big dragon! After tickling the dragon with our slime-covered swords we found a necklace of giant pearls, a sapphire cape, diamonds and a key!

“Hello? Hello? Did someone find a key?”, a lovely old man was asking. ‘It’s the key for my underwater castle you see”. Mahek handed the key and we asked if we could visit his underwater castle – but it turned out we needed to make up an Underwater Dance before we could do so!

What an adventure! Whilst we were doing our Reflective Drawings, we all agreed that it had been another fabulous afternoon getting together and enjoying the magic power of our imaginations!

Taz

Saturday

I really enjoyed seeing everyone for the open session on Saturday. Thanks to a whopping 35 families taking part, it was funny, cheery, and full of ideas!

Starting with GRANDMA GRANDMA was an absolute delight as so many faces lit up as we sang the song and did the actions with lots of groovy movement throughout. We took our dancing to the next level with our warm-up – I loved seeing all the flossing in the screens as well as the other equally brilliant dance moves you all led!

We then said hello to everyone and played our new game OPEN MY BOX – which had a lot of amazing reactions from everyone to what was inside. From Taiwo and Ope’s Blue Car that we got to drive in, and Abdal and Priscilla’s Rainbow Slide which we got to play on slipping and sliding into a rainbow adventure, everyone’s suggestions were so active and imaginative.

I loved then seeing everyone dressed as wonderful wildlife creatures for MR. WOLF. Lawand’s Mr Wolf and others were a delight, as the wolves and the forest animals played together so wonderfully as we built the world they lived in.

Our MAGIC BALL trip was filled with adventure! We entered a dark dungeon, spotted a huge dinosaur who had been transformed by Evil Wizard Meerab, saved a princess who lived in a castle, flew into space, landed on the moon, met an alien, and even found a magic potion that managed to turn the Evil Wizard good!

Our reflective drawing was an absolute treat, only made better by having Iona with us in spirit as we played one of her songs. Her beautiful song inspired many rich drawings and some absolutely incredible writing from some participants, who even read them out to us. My highlight came at the end as I got to lead my first Magic Clap!

Thank you, everyone, for being so wonderful.

Andre

This week’s wonderful Reflective Drawings

WORKSHOP

A workshop with Adie Baako!

We are so excited that African dancer Adie Baako will be joining us at this week’s play sessions for a very special workshop of Ghanian dance and song, especially for the Licketyspit Children & Families Network!

Adie grew up on the Atlantic coast in Ghana in a village with no electricity – imagine, a life without wi-fi and iPads! – so singing, drumming and dancing was often the best way to entertain yourself. Now a professional dancer, Adie shares his stories and music in these fun, energetic workshops, bringing the vibrant culture and colour of Ghana to Scotland, where he now lives. We can’t wait to share a session of song, dance, stories and fun with Adie, and our wonderful Children & Families Network!

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Aye aye, Captain! All aboard our Pirate Ship!

lickspit — Tue, 10 Nov 2020 10:25:10 +0000

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 was very bouncy! Suddenly we heard the whale shouting “please get out of my tummy!” Junior suggested that we could get out by doing our shark attack action, and it worked! We dived out of the whale’s mouth, and Martha and Lorraine fed him a great big fish.

Then we swam down into a coral reef – and had a taste of it! It tasted like bananas, apples and strawberry ice cream, yum! We looked up and saw a great big jellyfish overhead, so we grabbed onto a tentacle and it took us back to the magic ball – phew! Another amazing adventure!

See you next week!
Iona

Don’t forget to make your voice heard!

Which rights matter most to you and why?
Would you know what to do if your rights weren’t being respected?

Children have until Friday 20 November (International Children’s Day) to submit their views on the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child Incorporation Scotland Bill – which you can do here.

We can encourage children to think and talk about how they feel about their rights in lots of different ways – by finding out their thoughts through play, asking children questions, or encouraging them to use drawings or stories to tell us what they think and feel.

We’ve been using our Big Porridge & Play Online sessions to ask questions like the ones above, which you could also do as a family. You might want to also take a look at our Children’s Rights worksheets which encourage children to engage with the rights outlined in the UNCRC.

Children’s Rights Worksheet One
Children’s Rights Worksheet Two

Make sure your children have their say on their rights! Submit your views here by Fri 20 November.

WORKSHOP

A workshop with Adie Baako!

We are so excited that African dancer Adie Baako will be joining us on Saturday 21 November for a workshop of Ghanian dance and song, especially for the Licketyspit Children & Families Network!

Adie grew up on the Atlantic coast in Ghana in a village with no electricity – imagine, a life without wi-fi and iPads! – so singing, drumming and dancing was often the best way to entertain yourself. Now a professional dancer, Adie shares his stories and music in these fun, energetic workshops, bringing the vibrant culture and colour of Ghana to Scotland, where he now lives. Adie will join us in one of our Big Porridge & Play Online sessions, on Zoom – we can’t wait for a morning of song, dance, stories and fun!

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Another chance to join our spooky party – from home!

lickspit — Tue, 03 Nov 2020 13:54:21 +0000

What a fantastic Halloween party we had!

Did you join us on Saturday for our Halloween Family Party with Parent Club? The great news is that you can watch the video again any time you like – joining in with an HOUR of imagination-fuelled fun, from your own house! Halloween may be over for this year but when it’s dark and spooky outside you’ll still enjoy all our ghostly games and frightening fun…

For anyone who didn’t join us, we don’t want to ruin all the spooky surprises… let’s just say you’ll meet some funny characters, do some fantastic, silly dressing up, play Lickety Playcard games like MUCKY BREW and SPOOKY CHICKEN, dance along with us to a surprise Halloween song, and so much more! Watch the video to find out for yourself!

You can also watch it on the Parent Club Facebook page here, if you’d like to leave a comment and see what other parents have said. See below for some of the fantastic drawings and feedback sent in so far!

Remember to send your drawings and any feedback to cfn@licketyspit.com and we’ll include them in our gallery!

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