I am categorizing this under summer fun mini themes but I'll give the caveat that this particular one was a little more involved and in depth than some others I've shared here. That's partly because it's the first time I've done it, partly because I've gone totally overboard and partly because there are so many creative and playful ways to take young fans (and older ones) beyond the books of Harry Potter. I will also give the caveat that I struggled with the decision of whether to carry on with our Hogwarts MiniCamp when JK Rowling made the news with some rather unsavory comments of late. My decision to move forward with it was made because my children were already looking forward to this and because I think the author's books give young readers characters and ideas to connect with. While I do support a love of literacy, imagination and wonder in children's literature, I do not support some of the values the author has shared on a personal level. I do think as my own children get older, the many authors who line our bookshelves with admirable fictional characters and less than admirable personal characteristics will spark important and ongoing dialogue about kindness and inclusion. My final caveat is that while these books explore a world of magic and make believe, I use the opportunity to embrace imagination and fantasy while also teaching about the science end of it! So you'll notice a lot of activities involving sensory play, science experiments, animal and nature studies, games and movement and more!
With that all out of the way, let's dive in to the first part in a series that will take you on a Hogwarts bound adventure with us! You can select activities "a la carte" style, making a day of it, a week of it, or randomly sprinkling them throughout the year as inspiration strikes.
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Setting the Stage: The Friday before Hogwarts MiniCamp began, I set the stage, or rather, our small world play shelf with a mini Hogwarts. I created some wooden peg dolls to play the roles of Harry Potter, Ron Weasley, Hermione Granger, Professor McGonagall and Dumbledore (ok, I actually swapped in my Father Winter peg doll from a previous activity, shhh!).
In addition to those, I included a wooden castle toy we bought from a craft supply store several years ago around Purim, our toy trains and tracks for the Hogwarts Express, some accessories from our collections of blocks, toy animals, prisms, marbles, small loose parts, rocks/gems, wool roving, fairy garden accessories and even some of the graphics I purchased from Etsy printed onto card stock and cut out/taped. I took a lot of creative license here in order to use what we have at home. My friend who originally gave me this idea said her children played with it a ton, but I will admit that my own kids usually play with these setups a lot at first and then sporadically until I finally switch them out. Well, she was right! They really love his one! It's always fun to engage in dramatic play and explore imaginary worlds. It is somehow even more fun when that world is teeny tiny!
The night before we'd head off to Hogwarts, I set the [larger] stage for the day ahead. That included hanging our little Headwig (forgive the screech owl in place of a snowy owl) from the side of our stairs so the boys kids would see some exciting mail as they came down for breakfast. Inside of the envelopes, each of them would receive their acceptance letter to Hogwarts and a supply list of items they'd need before making the trip.
They would need to shop for supplies as well, so I set up "The Leaky Cauldron" shop at our little table (again, forgive the creative license here) with some wands to choose from (stay tuned though, because we will be doing more with this later), some wizard robes, a little notebook for each of the boys I made from the graphics I bought, a couple of cauldrons we had from the dollar store several Octobers ago, some tiny backpack wands for mixing potions (these were from Five Below) and some wand pencils for writing/drawing I made by drizzling hot glue on some pencils and painting them with acrylic paints and glitter.
Some additional books and sensory bottles helped set the stage for our one stop shop. If we had a bit more room here, it would have been fun to have separate shops for different items and activities as portrayed in the book, but this would suffice. You'll notice we don't have any brooms for sail, but rest assured, we have a couple of perfect for Quidditch brooms in our backyard made from sticks, dried grass/leaves and wire! This would be a great activity in and of itself and we loved taking a "stick walk" to find the supplies we needed to make them back when we did the activity in the spring.
I had a frog shaped chocolate mold I used to make some chocolate frogs and I even found some free printable Wizard cards. I packaged these up and some jelly beans for "Bertie Botts Every Flavour Beans."
Lastly, I crafted a Sorting Hat out of card stock, a themed chandelier from recycled toilet paper tubes with hot glue dripped down the sides to look like melted wax and an LED tealight inside hung from thread above our couch.
Our Hogwarts Express was pretty low tech as you can see, but the adventure was ready to go, right after about 4 pitiful hours of sleep...
Aboard the train, they got to buy and eat some chocolate frogs and Bertie Bott's Every Flavour Beans. Yes, in the morning. You only go to Hogwarts for the very first time once! When they finally arrived to the campus and settled into their dormitory, it was time to sit underneath the Sorting Hat who would select their Houses. Everyone (even Tatty) got to sit in the special seat as the Sorting Hat went to work. Each of the kids were presented with a House bracelet (from Five Below's party favor section).
Soon it would be time for the first of their classes to begin. I hope you'll join us next time to read all about it!
Until then, make sure you're studying up and practicing your broom flying skills and, as always...
Happy Playing!
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