A week at Hogwarts

 I recently taught a week long summer enhancement class for 4-6th graders that was Hogwarts themed!  I gathered so many ideas from around the internet, and I thought I'd share them with you here! 

First of all, I got some great decorations for the classroom from Amazon (the following are affiliate links - if you purchase something, I may make a small commission)  

Check out this video to see all of the decorations!  

See the links below to what I purchased:

• Brick wall doorway
• House Banners
• Floating candles 
• Harry and Hermione cardboard cutout
• Hogwarts tapestry/mural
• Have you seen this wizard photo prop

The house banners are so great - they are large and good quality - I will be able to use them for a number of years I believe.  They came with grommets at the top which I used with fishing wire to hang from the ceiling tiles. 

On the first day, the students were sorted into Houses.  I used this quiz, but I also tabulated the scores instead of the students so I could fudge the numbers a bit to make somewhat even houses.  I did allow the students to write what house they wanted to be in if they already knew their house.  I tabulated the scores as the students watched the Sorting Ceremony scene from Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone.  

Once the students were moved to their house tables, we started the first activity - House Butter Slime.  This slime recipe makes a super smooth slime that the kids LOVED playing with!  Now, I will tell you, when you first start mixing the slime with the Model Magic, it doesn't look like it is going to work, but if you continue kneading the mixture, it comes out great!  I purchased a box of Model Magic packets, which came with red, blue, yellow, and white - so we only had to add food coloring to the Slytherin slime.  They got the white packets which we colored.  

On the first day we also wrote Harry Potter Mad Libs, and I took the students' pictures for their Wand Permit which they would receive the next day.  We used a Fujifilm Instax Mini to take the pictures - which was it's own kind of magic for the students as most of them had never seen a polaroid picture develop before!  

Day 2 was all about wands!!  We created light up wands with sticks, electrical tape, led light bulbs, and battery packs.  

This activity actually went quite well - the students chose their stick, the color light bulb, and were instructed on how to wire it all together.  Some students needed more help than others, but by testing the connections at each step, most didn't have an issue.  I used 2 different types of wire and I will say this wire worked the best, it just needed to be stripped quite a bit for students to be able to twist the wires together.  

And finally . . . Lumos!!!

On this day we also did some Harry Potter Arithmancy with these handouts.  

We had an entire day devoted to Potions!  At first the students did a pH testing activity - we used test tubes and pipettes and they LOVED it

I created this Potions worksheet to go along with the activity - before we started they came up with predictions for each of the substances - then they recorded their observations as they did the activity.  Once we were done we discussed what happened and I showed them a pH scale and we discussed density.  

We also did a small group potions activity.  They were given the ingredients and recipe to make Veritaserum.  I love that this activity had Harry Potter named ingredients - it was so much fun!  

Another favorite activity was making Transfiguration Mugs - the students drew their designs on the mug with oil-based paint pens and then painted over the design with thermochromic paint which changed from black to clear with heat.  We drank hot chocolate out of our mugs and the results were great!  

A fun activity that the kids LOVED was Harry Potter themed Minute to Win It - this was a fun way to give out House Points and they had a great time!

I hope you enjoyed this journey to Hogwarts as much as the students and I did!  These activities were great hands-on STEM fun that we all loved!