Harry Potter Class

I am teaching two classes at our Monday Homeschool Co-op this semester. One of them is "Harry Potter" (aka "Hogwarts Correspondence School") for 8-11 year olds.  This class filled up rather quickly and I am the teacher only because Reed BEGGED me to make this class happen.  Yikes!  I love Harry Potter and all, but 9 weeks might be hard to fill.  Here's what we've done so far:

Week 1: Make wands out of newspaper, hot glue and spray paint (loosely following the directions *here*).  While the spray paint dried, we played a creative thinking game.  I wrote down some Harry Potter spells on pieces of paper and turned them face-down on the floor in the middle of our circle of kids.  When it's your turn, you choose a spell from the pile and you have to use the wand to cast it on someone else.  The creative thinking part is that you have to tell what creative reason you have for doing it.  There were no spells that would hurt someone.  For example, they might choose "Ferula" (creates a bandage or splint).  The child who is 'it' has to say the spell at someone else and tell why that person would need a bandage or splint.  Were they accidentally trampled by an out-of-sorts hippogriff?  Did they fall off their broomstick during a game of Quidditch?

Week 2:  Care of Magical Creatures class, part I.  Hagrid (the Hogwarts grounds keeper and Care of Magical Creatures teacher) sent us a letter (by owl post of course) describing our lesson.  The kids had to use the materials provided (books and magazines from the thrift shop) to create their own magical creature.  They had to name the creature and tell what powers it possessed.  There were some really awesome creations... half-monkey, half-dolphin for example!  One girl even wrote a poem about her creation.  Great creative writing exercise!

Week 3:  That is next week!  I was at a yard sale recently and saw a book called How to Raise and Keep Your Dragon for 50 cents.  Sold!  This sounded like the perfect thing for class ideas.  Sure enough, once I saw all the detailed drawings and description of dragons, including their various eggs, and I realized the next class is the day after Easter, I knew we had to go on a Dragon Egg Hunt.

This will be a totally fun day, maybe some geography will be discussed.  This hunt will take place in our own Forbidden Forest (we really do have a wooded area at co-op that is usually off-limits to the kids).  I've had a blast making dragon eggs.  First we had to decide what to fill the eggs with.  Candy in a dragon egg?  I think not.  How about slime?  Clay had fun helping me make this simple slime from borax, glue and water.

Of course some pretty pebbles:

I made some fun magnets with Potter quotes:

I also used some temporary tattoos of snakes & spiders (Chamber of Secrets reference of course!), and well of course some money... every dragon has a good stash, I would assume.  Each kid is only getting 50 cents, so not really breaking the bank there :)  In fact, I think these ideas would be great for anyone who is trying to do a candy-free egg hunt this holiday.
Then I picked 6 of the easier-looking eggs from our book and got to work.  Spray paint, sharpies and a little hot glue made some awesome dragon eggs!

Let the hunt begin!

And in other news, I just have to share that even though my boys have their fair share of bickering, this is what I heard from my sewing table last night:
"Stop it!  It's my turn to put a diaper on her"
"No it's not, you did it last time!"
They aren't too keen on changing a wet diaper, but if she's already streaking naked around the house (happens more than I'd like to admit), they are proud that they can cover that bottom right back up.  And look at that patient look on her face: