Some children in Year 3 and 4 have had a magical time this term at Harry Potter club. During the first session, the children arrived to find that Hedwig had delivered their Hogwarts letters and a fancy train ticket for the Hogwarts Express: all aboard!
The children wrote their replies to Professor McGonagall using invisible ink and magical parchment, which revealed their replies when placed in the Bunsen flame. The following week, Miss Prior brought in some Dragon eggs which she had managed to acquire from a local wizard and decided to try to hatch them. With a little bit of swirly whirly potion magic, we incubated the eggs for a whole week under a special incubation lamp.
When the children arrived the following week, the dragon eggs had hatched! The children quickly chose a dragon to adopt and name, deciding what their dragon’s special abilities were going to be.
In subsequent weeks we turned our attentions to various parts of Hogwarts life from designing our own magical potions to choosing which animals would represent each child in a Patronus charm. The children particularly enjoyed this as they had to think of their happiest memory ever to create their Patronus charm, with winning the swimming gala featuring quite heavily!
At Hogwarts, Halloween is particularly well celebrated, and features the many Hogwarts ghosts at the Halloween feast. The children watched clips of each of the ghosts and competed in a ghost quiz to name as many as they could remember. Afterwards, we made “pocket ghosts” out of straws and visited the vegetable patch to fly them.
On the same evening as the Vinehall Fireworks, the children were extremely excited before the event so we made some wands which gave out real sparks in a Bunsen flame. During book week, the children found out which Hogwarts house they had been sorted into after considering the characters of each house; they then created Harry Potter themed bookmarks for their house colours. One week, we noticed that the dragon box had been moved from its storage place and we highly suspected Dobby and his house elves to be responsible so we created some colourful sock designs and hung them on a mini-washing line to see if the house elves would take them … Sure enough they had disappeared by the following week, leaving the washing line all askew!
The enthusiasm of Year 3 and 4 children at Harry Potter Club has made the sessions truly magical. In the Lent term, Harry Potter club will be open to Year 5 and 6 children so book your places! I thought I would sign off with a few kind reviews from the Year 3 and 4 children:
“My favourite bit was when we incubated our dragons.”
“My favourite thing that we did in Harry Potter Club was when we had a fire dispenser (Bunsen burner!) and a stick (splint!) then we dipped it in water and then in iron filings then we put it in the fire and it created sparks and made a wand.”
“Harry Potter Club is a lot of fun to do. I do not have a favourite one because they have all been so much fun. I love Harry Potter club because of the fun activities.”
“My favourite thing about Harry Potter club is when we hatched our dragons and chose our dragons. I liked making dobby’s socks and book marks and flying ghosts and sparkling wands. I would give Harry Potter club a 5-star rating”.
“In Harry Potter Club, my favourite thing is making and creating things!”
Becky Prior
