hogwarts magical studies: day two
This was a pretty fun use of some of the odds and ends I have at home! The kids seemed to enjoy it just as much as Orientation, which I admit I was worried about. Because I'm still treating it like a 'class', and kids don't like school all that much. So, relief there! Of course it helps that these are magical classes. Today I also asked everyone to bring in pennies, the maximum twenty, and I would give them a point a penny. At least one person from each house brought twenty pennies. The house points are all up to ridiculous levels now. I am clearly a fool. XD
So, without further ado:
Day Two: Care of Magical Creatures
Inside the bag I had a lot of multicolored styrofoam peanuts from my Lush gift set, which apparently had sucked up all the scent of the soap and bath balls, and a velvet drawstring bag with deer teeth inside. The egg is an ostrich egg, and the arrows in the quiver all have the name of a magical creature attached to them. These were my supplies.
So the first thing I showed to the children were the deer teeth, which I called 'gryffin teeth'. They held them and oohed and aahhed over them and asked me where I found them. I said they'd been given to me by the tooth fairy a few years ago.
After that, I displayed the ostrich egg, which I informed them was a dragon egg. I told them that naturally, they are hot enough to burn your hand, but I'd been keeping this one in the daycare freezer, so it was at room temperature, but bound to get hot very quickly. I passed it around and they held it and looked through the hole where the dragon had escaped. I told them that they had to be very, very careful, because dragon eggs were of a naturally explosive substance and would explode when dropped. A couple of the kids refused to hold it after hearing that!
After that, I took out the styrofoam peanuts and told the kids that they were boggleworms, a distant relation of the muggle, sea-dwelling sponge, easily distinguished from average packing peanuts by their distinctive scent. They feed on sunlight and need to be placed in a bright place for them to thrive. The kids each got a small handful and started sniffing them (they smell good after soaking up the soap scent!) and looking excited about their new 'pets'. I got a lot of questions about how to care for them, like where they went at night, what happens if they got stepped on, why are they full of holes, etc.
After that, I chose one child from each house to draw an arrow from the quiver and read it to see which magical creature was assigned to them to research. Gryffindor got the unicorn but traded it with Ravenclaw for the gryffin, Slytherin got the dragon, and Hufflepuff got the phoenix. Then they all set out to read the information sheets I'd composed and printed out for them. They all drew large pictures of their animals and talked about what they did and where they lived.
So after that, a bunch of them asked for permission to do wand practice, which is basically them looking over my list of spells and practicing them on each other, with one kid off to the side ready to cast 'finite incantatum' if things get ugly. Today they shot the full-body bind, leg locker curse, and the confusion charm at each other. It's adorable watching them play this, but I can't get a shot that doesn't show their faces!
Tomorrow, the class deals with Charms!
So, without further ado:
Day Two: Care of Magical Creatures
Inside the bag I had a lot of multicolored styrofoam peanuts from my Lush gift set, which apparently had sucked up all the scent of the soap and bath balls, and a velvet drawstring bag with deer teeth inside. The egg is an ostrich egg, and the arrows in the quiver all have the name of a magical creature attached to them. These were my supplies.
So the first thing I showed to the children were the deer teeth, which I called 'gryffin teeth'. They held them and oohed and aahhed over them and asked me where I found them. I said they'd been given to me by the tooth fairy a few years ago.
After that, I displayed the ostrich egg, which I informed them was a dragon egg. I told them that naturally, they are hot enough to burn your hand, but I'd been keeping this one in the daycare freezer, so it was at room temperature, but bound to get hot very quickly. I passed it around and they held it and looked through the hole where the dragon had escaped. I told them that they had to be very, very careful, because dragon eggs were of a naturally explosive substance and would explode when dropped. A couple of the kids refused to hold it after hearing that!
After that, I took out the styrofoam peanuts and told the kids that they were boggleworms, a distant relation of the muggle, sea-dwelling sponge, easily distinguished from average packing peanuts by their distinctive scent. They feed on sunlight and need to be placed in a bright place for them to thrive. The kids each got a small handful and started sniffing them (they smell good after soaking up the soap scent!) and looking excited about their new 'pets'. I got a lot of questions about how to care for them, like where they went at night, what happens if they got stepped on, why are they full of holes, etc.
After that, I chose one child from each house to draw an arrow from the quiver and read it to see which magical creature was assigned to them to research. Gryffindor got the unicorn but traded it with Ravenclaw for the gryffin, Slytherin got the dragon, and Hufflepuff got the phoenix. Then they all set out to read the information sheets I'd composed and printed out for them. They all drew large pictures of their animals and talked about what they did and where they lived.
So after that, a bunch of them asked for permission to do wand practice, which is basically them looking over my list of spells and practicing them on each other, with one kid off to the side ready to cast 'finite incantatum' if things get ugly. Today they shot the full-body bind, leg locker curse, and the confusion charm at each other. It's adorable watching them play this, but I can't get a shot that doesn't show their faces!
Tomorrow, the class deals with Charms!