A Letter From Hogwarts
Because this entire thing was a surprise, I wanted a creative way to tell Jacob about it so the night before our big day, I attached a "tailored" acceptance letter to a stuffed Hedwig owl (that I had left over from my 16th birthday party...thanks mom!) and delivered it to him (or threw it at him while he was in bed).
To keep the font for the acceptance letter I had to save it as a pdf found here but you can also print the word document here and just download your own font.
Breakfast at Hogwarts
The first thing we did when we woke up in the morning was to put on our robes (which we had from our Halloween costume the year before, to make these we bought graduation robes and I drew the house crests with permanent marker onto a white fabric and used iron-on adhesive to fuse the fabric and the "robes") and have a classing English breakfast from "The Unofficial Harry Potter Cookbook" of Marmalade and Toast & English style eggs & Sausage.
My Courageous Gryffindor
Hufflepuff and proud!
A day of Hogwarts classes
My idea for the day was to have Jacob "attend" all of the subjects (plus a few) required to become an Auror for the Ministry of Magic, take his NEWTS, attend Auror training and then hunt for horcruxes. So, the first half of the day was spent with Jacob attending and me teaching Hogwarts subjects!
First up: Herbology
For Herbology, I gave Jacob a handout on the "dittany" plant and we planted a dittany seedling. The dittany plant was actually an aloe vera plant kit that I purchased from Hobby Lobby. The information on the handout is actually totally accurate (for the aloe vera plant). You can find the handout here and the plant kit online here.
Potions Class
For this class, we did "truth serum", which was actually a basic cabbage indicator experiment. You can read about this experiment here. Prior to the experiment, I prepared the cabbage solution by boiling chopped red cabbage in a pot of water until the water had turned a darker red (I didn't follow any particular directions or recipe for this). For this lesson I had the teacher's example set up and then had the student set up, which were different, but looked similar. We also created two separate serums that would react in different ways if the person was "keeping a secret". The students setup had:
- Dragon's blood (cabbage indicator)
- unicorn horn (baking soda & glitter)
- Armadillo Bile (Laundry detergent)
- Scissors (to cut hair of person in question)
The teacher's setup appeared to have the same ingredients, but were actually different:
- Dragon's blood (still cabbage indicator)
- Unicorn horn (powdered sugar & glitter)
- Armadillo Bile (Lemon juice)
- Scissors
This "potion brewing" had two components:
The first was based on the idea that baking soda would fizz when it encountered the cabbage juice.....this is not however true. The website I got this off of later fixed it's information to add that you have to add vinegar first. SO, I would add some vinegar to that particular "cauldron" of dragon's blood first and then add the baking soda! The idea that is if the person is keeping a secret, their potion will fizz (the student's will fizz because of the baking soda, but the teacher's will not because it is just sugar!)
The second was based on the idea that the "person with a secret's" potion would turn black if they had a secret. When the soap (student's armadillo bile) is added, the indicator turns a dark green, but the teacher's armadillo bile (lemon juice) turns the indicator hot pink. Therefore, the student is obviously keeping a secret! Silly, but fun! The handout can be found here.
Teacher setup
Student setup
The results
Charms
For this class, we reviewed the Charms part of the Book of Spells (found here) and played a type of charades to review the spells. Note: for the Book of Spells, I hand drew out wand patterns beside the image of what the spell does, you will need to do this if you choose to use this book because I didn't scan it back in after drawing them.
Transfiguration
For this class we used another kit a found at Hobby Lobby that "makes snow". In the Book of Spells, the last page is the spell for this and when Jacob did the spell, I added the snow mix to water and it created snow! This was another cheesy one, but also fun! You can find it online here
Care of Magical Creatures
This one was probably my favorite! I found a small dragon figurine and froze it in small tupperware containers (I would recommend using a left over easter egg if you have one!). I would also recommend coloring the water or mixing in flour so its more cloudy. I didn't think this through and ended up just rolling my "egg" in flour right before we "hatched it". I have Jacob a "Dragon breeding for pleasure and profit" book (which I found online but tailored to fit my needs) and had him study it then follow the directions to "hatch" a dragon egg. We ended up melting the egg in a pot on the stove but if you have a fire pit, you could actually put it in the flames like the do in the book (just make sure not to melt your dragon). You can find the dragon manual here.
Defense Against the Dark Arts
Of course for this class, we had to do Harry Potter's seemingly favorite spell, the Patronus charm. For this class, I needed a flashlight, a paper circle with an animal shape cut out, and the Patronus page from the Book of Spells. Jacob did the spell and I shone a flashlight on the dark wall. Our flashlight was an LED light and didn't work SUPER well, I would recommend using a regular flashlight. We also reviewed the spells in the Book of Spells that were DADA spells. Very simple but fun!
N.E.W.T.S.
After his classes, Jacob had to prove that he had mastered them by taking his N.E.W.T.S. I actually made them quite hard, so for little ones you might want to make them a bit easier or do them along with them! For most classes, it was a written test but there was a practical component to the Charms and DADA's test in which I made him "cast" the spell with the correct wand motion. He was really great and made top marks! You can find the exam and grade sheets here.
Career Advisement
Just as Harry had to endure career advisement from Professor Umbridge, so Jacob had to have a meeting with me. Hopefully it was much more pleasant though over tea and biscuits. We used pamphlet I found online about being an Auror that I unfortunately can no longer find.
Auror Training
This was when we watched the first part of the seventh movie! Training for our later adventure!
Hunting Horcruxes
To join the fight against Voldemort, we went to help Harry discover Horcruxes in the Bryan/College Station area. First, we changed into our disguised muggle clothes and purchased replacement Horcruxes (cheap lockets at Forever 21) and included RAB's note in each one. Then, we went searching, a.k.a. we went geocaching. If you've never done this, you absolutely should, I LOVE it! Geocaching is a global activity in which small containers, that contain small objects and a roster to sign, are hidden and then the GPS coordinates are inputted into the website https://www.geocaching.com/ for others to hunt for. There is also an app to take on the go. We hunted down 3 horcruxes and replaced them with our fakes!
Celebration of Victory
To celebrate finding the Horcruxes, we enjoyed a butterbeer at the 3 broomsticks (Muldoon's coffee house in College Station-they serve a "muggle version" of this drink!) and a great feast of Bangers and Mash (via the Unofficial Harry Potter Cookbook)! Followed up by Treacle tart and the final Harry Potter film!
It was such a fun day and we thoroughly enjoyed super-nerding out for a day! I hope you enjoyed reading about our Harry Potter Day and adapt some of these to enjoy yourself!
The aftermath...wishing house elves actually existed.
