Care of Magical Creatures Class!

So, it's been frustrating trying to round up ideas for my kids for Hogwarts!  I work full time and there just isn't a lot out there.

I finally decided I could make class packets on my own!  So, I did!  So far only one is complete and ready - it's for sale at www.etsy.com/shop/dragoncraftcreations!

It is a digital download and you can get it INSTANTLY!  I've done all the work for you!

I will have updates probably each year AND I'm working on more classes!  Come check it out!

2016 Summer Hogwarts Academy!!

Have finally had some time to do Hogwarts this summer!  Visiting with folks and family!

Harry Potter Jewelry!

We have also had a good time making jewelry this summer!  I forgot to take pictures of the ones I gave my niece, but here is one we made:

It has a golden snitch I got from Esty (love the charms - you can buy them HERE.

Pygmy Puffs

We have made some pygmy puffs!  Very cute!

I plan on making many more - they are just too cute!!

Update on the Dragon Eggs

I decided I didn't like the eggs with the air-dry clay.  I went to Michaels and got some bake-dry clay but discovered they didn't have the green in large quantities.  I ended up getting black just to fool around with.

Here are the results!

I actually liked the darker chain on the other eggs we did, but I had thought I needed lighter colored chain for the black clay.  I still think they turned out pretty cool!  I think I would like to still do the green and maybe use a straw dipped in black paint to make some cool round spots on them.  Still, I'm pretty happy with this one!

Monsters, Flowers and Eggs! Oh, My!

Today was a very active day in Hogwarts.

We started off by doing our wand worksheets.  We made our wands last time and this time we got to fill in our worksheets about what our wands are made of.  The form we used is on my printable tab.

Next we worked on our dragon eggs!  I got red and green clay (I wanted something that would dry hard, so I got some of the crayola clay that hardens in 72 hours).  We wrapped the clay around plastic easter eggs and then added gems, chains and other designs.  We were not too thrilled with the clay.  I think we will try this again with a better clay that can be molded and sculpted better.  Here is what they look like:

I will report back on how well they hardened.  I believe the jewels are going to fall off once it dries.  We shall see.

After making our eggs, we got to get our first monster for our Care of Magical Creatures class.  I had all the monsters in a bag (like they used on the movie to draw the dragons out of in The Goblet of Fire).  Each student picked a monster and then picked a cage for it.  Then we all filled out worksheets (see the printable page for a copy of it).

Finally, we had Herbology class.  I sent the students out to find small flowers and other things to press.  I read a post on how to microwave your flowers for emergency pressing (or for those of us who have no patience!).  HERE IS THE LINK for how to microwave pressed flowers.

I didn't have any crafts picked out to do with them but we did put them on a page for our Herbology manual. (And of course I have a copy of the form/worksheet on my printables tab!)

It was a wonderful day!  I can't wait for next time!

Summer Hogwarts 2014

It's that time of year again!  Summer vacation is here and we have begun our Summer Hogwarts Academy!

Our first order of business is to watch all of the movies!  So far we are up through number 6!  They are soooo good!  It certainly gets us in the mood!

While watching the movies, we made our wands!  They turned out really well!

I also handed out the notebooks - we have several this year:  the main manual, Herbology, Dragonology 101, The Essential Dragon Manual, the Art of Divination and Magical Creatures: a guide to mystical beasts.

The Manual has sections inside:  Defense Against the Dark Arts, Charms, Transfiguration, Astronomy, Spells and Potions. (I will show pictures of those later)

The rest are below:

There is also a Fairy Manual, which I don't have a picture of at the moment because they are all in use!

We also enjoyed Potions Class by making Butterbeer (rootbeer floats!).  It was just like being at Honeydukes!

I am looking forward to a wonderful summer!  I will post the printables on my printables tab so you can enjoy them too!

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!