Hogwarts Classes - A Busy Day!

It was an eventful day for Hogwarts this week!  I had a lot of crafts and activities planned!

I made Herbology books for each child to take.  Inside I put 4 blank worksheets for them to design their own magical plants.

I had worksheets for most everything we did.  It is good to keep the kids writing during the summer so they are ready for school!  Plus, it's so great to hear their wonderful imaginations tell about their crafts!  Super kids!

Our first activity was the House Ghosts.  I had cut black construction paper to fit in a box on the worksheet. I had them put a splotch of paint (or paints as some kids decided) and then fold the paper.  When they unfolded it, they had their new House Ghost!  They then filled in information about their ghosts!

The kids really did a great job.  We glued the black paper onto their worksheets so they had a momento to keep!  I put them into their notebooks they got on the first day.  By the end of Summer Academy, they are going to have a great collection of the fun things they did!

Next we had our Transfiguration Lesson.  We grew crystals on rocks!  I got the kits at the dollar store.  Unfortunately, they didn't turn out very well, but the kids did have fun doing them!

Next, since I had a full group, we cracked marbles again.  I found bags in blue, clear and green at the dollar store.  We heated them at 500 degrees for 20 minutes and then dropped them into cold ice water.  It was fun!

Next, we took our new "Gems" and put jewelry caps on them and each child got a necklace!  I used hot glue to hold the marble on since I needed something to dry fast.  Also, the putting of the cap on was not as easy as the tutorial made it out to be, but it is still a great tutorial to follow.  You can see it HERE.

I also had the kids decorate their own wizard's hat!  I will put a copy of the blank worksheet on our printable worksheet page!

At the end of the day, my kids put glow sticks in the pool and played in the water with the eerie glow.  They really had a great day!!

Hogwarts School Continues

We had another day of Hogwarts at our house!  We had one child who had never come and we were missing one due to vacation, so I had a total of six children, plus my daughter to help teach.

This was a full session.  The child who had never come had to be sorted and given her wand.  She sorted into Gryffindor, so I now have 2 Gryffindors, 3 Hufflepuffs, 1 Ravenclaw, and 1 Slytherin when everyone comes.

Once our newest wizard had her wand, Bertie Bott's Beans and stuffed dragon from the first session, we headed outside to our huge round table where I could fit all the kids.  It was a bit hot, but children never seem to mind.  I kept them hydrated while we had our classes.

I started by giving them each a quill pen.  I made them myself since it involved cutting an ink cartridge and I didn't want the little ones to get covered in ink!  I made each one from a black feather so that no one would be upset by what they got.  I did make the ink different colors - pink, green, blue and purple.  Everyone seemed quite happy with their pens.

Once they had their quills, they were ready to start!  First order of business was to get our Father's Day gifts done.  I had each of them paint a frame (I had markers, paints, stickers, foam stickers etc).  I also had them fill out a worksheet on things they love about their dads.  After they were done, I took their pictures and while my daughter taught the next class, I ran down to the computer and printed them out.  A nice gift for each child's dad.

Next, we moved on to Care of Magical Creatures Class.  We discussed habitats (yes - I do sneak some learning in here!) and they each worked on a habitat worksheet:

Then, I had them watch the snippet from Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire where the champions all gather around the magic bag and pull out their dragons that they are to fight.  None of the children had seen the movie so they thought it was wonderful.  I had them reach into a purple bag of my own and pull out their own dragons.  (I bought the TOOB dragons from Michaels so there were plenty to choose from).

I then had each child make their dragon a habitat!  I bought tupperware type containers at the dollar store (each had lids to keep their dragons from escaping! - Not to mention all the things they put inside).  I had moss from the flower section of Michaels, plastic trees (another TOOB item), stickers of trees, rocks, colored rocks, etc).  The kids had a great time making their habitats and discussing the habitats of their dragons and how each dragon lived.  Some wonderful imaginations on these kids!

I manned the hot glue gun station so that kids who wanted to glue down their trees or rocks could have that done, but I didn't want any of them getting burned, so only I did that.

By the time we finished with our habitats for our dragons, we were starved so it was time to move on to Potions Class!

Our Potions consisted of ice cream sundaes!  We had a wonderful time mixing our potions and then eating them!  Quite a success!  We had mini chocolate chips (pixie poop), dragon knuckles (peanuts), essence of ghost (canned whipped topping), crystallized moonbeams (sliced bananas), gryffon blood (chocolate syrup), essence of butterbeer (butterscotch topping), werewolf blood (strawberry topping), dried rainbow pieces (colored sprinkles), dragon scales (m&m's) etc.  The kids thought it was great and then really enjoyed eating their creations!  I was supposed to have them fill out a potions worksheet, but they were all pretty tired by this point, so they wound down by watching Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone (the new child hadn't seen it) until it was time to go home.

It really was a fun day and the kids didn't want to go home.  They can't wait until next session!

Another Day at Hogwarts!

We had a misfire in that the neighborhood kids couldn't come to Hogwarts today.  So we rearranged some things and did a lot of coloring type crafts.

We had Transfiguration Class today and made up magical things from two (or three) separate words.  Then we had Herbology Class and created magic plants from a seed:

I will post all the forms on the forms page since I can't figure out how to put just .pdf thumbnails up.  Feel free to use the forms for your own Hogwarts Classes!

Next we played with marble cracking.  We didn't have any clear marbles and it didn't work as well with the multi-colored ones but it was fun.  I followed the directions from a wonderful site!  You can too - just click HERE.  Really nice tutorial.

We are going to try again with clear or solid colored marbles.  Now, I just have to find some!!

We also spent some time on our Care of Magical Creatures book:

Although we missed all the kids, it was a very eventful and fun day at Hogwarts!

Attempting to Upload .pdf Files

Today I will attempt to upload some pdf files.  I am still so new to this blogging thing, so please bear with me!

Hogwarts: Blank Bertie Bott's Bean Sheet

Here is my first attempt!  Hopefully it worked!

2013 Hogwarts Academy Begins!

I have been teaching Hogwarts Summer Academy for years.  My kids - and most of the neighborhood kids - have enjoyed the world created by J.K.Rowling every summer.  It has been a time for crafts and magic; a way to keep away the summer blahs.

My computer crashed late last year and I lost 10+ years of Hogwarts craft ideas and templates.  I figured since I am having to recreate the wheel, so to speak, I might as well share my magical adventures here!

We started this year's session and it is challenging now that Harry Potter has faded into the past.  It is hard to teach about boggarts and remembrals when the kids haven't even seen the movies!  So we started off by watching Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone yesterday.  It was a big hit!

I started by making some bingo cards so I could get them all to watch the movie.  (The kids range in age from just finishing pre-K to one going into 6th grade, so I have my hands full trying to keep them all happy!). I also had coloring pages ready to keep the younger ones busy.

They began to get antsy so we ended up painting our wands during the movie.  I was surprised at how well even the youngest one did!  I had pre-made the wands to the point of painting. I found an excellent tutorial on a way to make them using chopsticks and hot glue.  I believe these wands are the best I've made yet!  I did use some chopsticks, but found those a bit small for my taste, so I picked up some dowels in various sizes and used those, too.

The link to the website I used is HERE.  Very awesome site.

This one is mine - I painted it all in gold.  I LOVE it!

Even my 2nd oldest joined in the fun (she is a "Professor" and helps with the kids):

Given that she is almost 20 years old, it just goes to show that Harry Potter never goes out of style!

I had the table all laid out with their wands and other goodies:

I had beanie ballz dragons all wrapped up for each kid (I mean, c'mon!  who doesn't need a dragon??), Bertie Bott's Every Flavor Beans, popcorn and fruit for them all.

The Beans I made by just getting jelly belly beans and put them in plastic baggies.  I printed off a logo from the Internet and stapled them onto the bags.

I tried to buy some, but they are just not to be found!  I also looked for Chocolate Frogs and all the other Harry Potter candy that you used to be able to get.  I couldn't even find them at Party City - in fact, there were no Harry Potter party decorations or anything out there.  I will have to plan earlier and buy on-line next time.  I just didn't expect there to be a Harry Potter vacuum - I mean it's Harry Potter!  Sigh ... kids have moved on to other things, but that doesn't mean we can't make sure they are exposed!  I'm certainly doing my part!

I let them have duels with their wands (no hitting each other!).  I pulled up Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets just to show them the duel between Snape and Gilderoy Lockhart.  I had them do their best poses!

I also had them sorted into their houses.  Normally, this is the first thing you would do, but since most of the kids had never even seen the movie, we had to watch the movie first.  I had the older ones take a longer quiz on line and the younger ones do easier quizzes.  My older daughters (also "Professors") helped do the sorting.  We ended up with 3 Hufflepuffs, 1 Gryffindor and 1 Slytherin.  My daughter in the picture above was already sorted into Ravenclaw in previous Hogwarts years.

Once they were sorted, I had each of them color their house crests.  I also had them make up their own Bertie Bott's Bean flavor:  Here is mine:

If I can ever figure out how to upload pdfs into a blog, I will post the blank forms here.  My flavor was "spicy moonbeam" while we had another that was "dragon fire swirl."  Tasty!

I made small 3-ring binders (1/2") for each of them to put their works of art in:

All in all, it was a great start!  I have to get permission from the parents to post pictures of their kids and if they consent, I'll have lots of pictures of the kids having fun this summer!  I don't charge for any of this - it's just fun for the kids.  I can't do it every day because, as a lawyer, I don't have much time, but when I do find a slow day, I invite all the kids over and we have a grand Harry Potter adventure!