Welcome to Hogwarts Distance Education, I hope you enjoy seeing our fun as much as I have had in the planning of it. Setting up my schoolroom has always been a big fun deal to me. I do rea;lize that the children are getting older, themes are kind of wasting away for them but I wanted just one more. Just one more big thing before they are just too old to really have fun with it anymore.

The idea started with a few posters and a yahoo group. Then of course we had to have a Honeydukes and before you knew it the kids had thrown around ideas, I saw Harry Potter parties online and this little idea has taken on a life of its own. Because like me my children have to go all out so to speak!

Thursday, September 20, 2018

Our Magical Week




 Magic school day is here!! This is her favorite day of the week I believe.  It was a pretty full day with Cauldron Cooking, Potions, book work, reading and a magical movie! This is the first time using The Wizards Workshop book and I am hoping she can do whatever she chooses pretty much on her own.  The art work in the book is pretty cutesy too. It is divided into three chapters, basic potions for beginners,  advanced wizard potions and hair raising potions for daring wizards. Now this is a cute book I saw it and fell in love right away. It wasn't the kids just mixing random stuff it was actual experiments with reactions but worded in a magical way so it was win win for me! It also came with a handy ingredient list and a set of down loadable labels to make the bottles for everything, which I did of course! Now the first down fall was the whole common ingredients it says that it uses. NO, most of these are not common things people have around their house I had to order a big majority of these chemicals off line. 
       The second down fall was picking potions and realizing we didn't have some of the stuff readily available at home even though I already got everything on the list. That was kind of frustrating. Granted I could have read through the book beforehand but when a book advertises that the list is everything you need I pretty much expect that to follow through. We finally decided on a potion that we had everything needed for and got to work! 











        Skyler has gotten a new room the last few months and decided we should scare of any possible bogeyman so she chose the Bogeyman Bomb Bag to make today!




        Now if I had written this book I would have done a separate parent book and kids book. The kids book would not have included any of the common names for the ingredients, I think this kind of takes away from the magical appeal, but that is just me. 




        I did however like the little stories and jokes placed at random on the pages. That was adorable!














        
       I also would have tried to come up with more magical type names instead of common stuff like zip lock baggies. In college my absolute favorite class was dramatic play and I am queen of the themes so to speak. I always enjoy doing up a theme as much as possible where kids are concerned. 




        Her potions trunk is just an old trunk I had gotten for free from a home school thing I just painted it black and put a pink tote inside of it for her. It holds all of the ingredients for this book nicely. I am hoping she gets artsy one day and decides to decorate it!






      
        On the labels it also includes the common name again this is something I would have left out if it were my book. 




        My pretty little witch has always had a bigger sibling that takes over most things so I am really working on getting her to do stuff like this for herself this year so I sat and watched while she completed the mixing!











        The directions were fairly clear she didn't have any issue following them so that was a good mark for the book! I took video of the "bomb" and was a bit disappointed. The video is divided in two and sorry the first is sideways but a movie maker I am not! Maybe Skyler can come up with some type of spell to cast.....HMMMMMMM. 










        We had to improvise to get it to finally work. That frustrates me. I have noticed that a lot with kids stuff lately. I buy kits, stuff don't work etc. In the end we got our blow up! She had a lot of fun so in my opinion it was fine but I don't think these were tested before printing them and I know some children get very upset when things don't work out. I will most likely test future ideas before in case anything needs tweaked so to speak. 

        As with anything Skyler does she always has a few magical creatures hanging around to help or disturb her!













        For book work Skyler is still using her Summer Magic Book to keep track of the things she does. 

        It was kind of hard to find things for each subject to be sure she is still learning while having fun. The Dragon Grammar Book is just great. It isn't very much writing and she enjoys the little silly sentences. 




       This book along with Magic and Math in Wonderland are her Arithmancy books. The puzzle book may just get dropped unless it gets a little better so far it just seems frustrating and annoying. She is enjoying Math and Magic in Wonderland though. 













        Now for cauldron cooking! We made boggart blobs! The recipe comes from her Monster Book Of Monsters. The book itself was made using the yahoo groups for Hogwarts Summer Correspondence. The book cover I have had for years and was found on E-Bay. 








         I am again using the cooking for her to learn to do things on her own. The kitchen intimidates her so hopefully we can get over that this year. 


















        We enjoyed our snack while watching The Labyrinth. This is one of my favorite all time movies and I had waited to show it to Skyler. I wanted her to really understand the point of the movie and not just watch puppets dancing around. After the movie we had fun researching things about the movie, its actors/actresses and the making of it of course! She fell in love with The Labyrinth and the music just as I knew she would. It was also fun to see my older son coming in and out every few minutes to watch! You are never too old to have your first trip through The Labyrinth and right after it ended she took her second!







   
        Skyler's cat Cupid watches everything with the utmost interest! we have often thought he is the result of a horrible curse or spell gone wrong because he acts so human!




        It was a wonderful day. We got to learn a lot, have fun and play. It was just magical! My mother raised me on myths, fairy tales and stories. It was the single best part of my childhood and I will always hold that dear. I have tried extremely hard to keep that alive in my children for as long as possible. Happy spell casting!!!

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