It is finally time for Part 5 in our Harry Potter series! Can you believe it?! I have been sharing the magic with you for 5 weeks now, and I hope you have loved reading about it as much as I loved teaching it! If you didn’t read Parts 1-4, make sure you catch up and then come back to this post!
All caught up? All right, let the magic BEGIN! 🙂
The 5th week in our Harry Potter Unit focused on the climax of our book, Chapters 16-17. I chose to leave only two chapters for this last week, so we could read through them slowly and really enjoy the exciting and surprise ending to the book!
I took the opportunity to do some grammar in these last two chapters. We are constantly working on commonly misused words, and these two chapters were full of them. We did homophone word boxes and I made it part of their Word Work for the week. My kiddos loved the Homophone Hunt we did with the book, and had a blast pointing them out!
When we got to the curses in Chapter 16, I knew this would be a GREAT time to do some inferring (a hard skill for my fourthies to master!) I stopped reading at the end of page 283, which was a huge cliff hanger, too! I didn’t take a picture of one of my student’s paper, but here is part of what the activity looks like.
When we finished the book, you could’ve heard a pin drop in our classroom. My students were STUNNED at the plot twist, and were so excited to hear the ending! They were all chuckling in the scene of Harry in the hospital talking with Dumbledore. “Alas, beeswax!” got a good laugh. 🙂 So naturally, I knew it was the perfect time to pull out some every flavored beans! I got a few of these off of Amazon for the Harry Potter effect:
But after hearing about Bean Boozled, I knew I HAD to get them for the class! They are hilarious to watch your kiddos try. I ordered 3 packs (each pack comes with 20 beans total). Even though it took a while for everyone to try, it was well worth the time to see their reactions! You spin the spinner and it lands on a divided section with a normal flavored bean, and a yucky flavored bean. You choose one of the beans that is that color, and hope pray that you get the normal one! For example, there is Buttered Popcorn/Rotten Egg.
After my students picked theirs, I had them do a quick writing prompt and write all about their reaction to the bean! This kept the talking and outrageousness to a minimum (well, somewhat!) and made a fun journal entry in our writer’s notebooks.
Here is a picture of me all dressed up trying them:
I got black licorice/skunk spray and of course…
I got the skunk spray bean! Oh my gosh the taste lasted in my mouth FOREVER!
We finished the book on Thursday, October 29th. This was PERFECT timing because the next day was supposed to be our Halloween party. So, I made the entire day a Harry Potter themed celebration!
Of course, I had to dress up, and my awesome teaching partner was SUCH a good sport and offered to dress up, too! We wanted to surprise the kiddos (they of course expected Harry and Hermione or Ron) but we kept them on their toes…
We dressed as Snape and Malfoy!! I couldn’t get over how much like Snape my teaching partner looked… it was AWESOME!
Draco on his way to Hogwarts!
We started off the morning by making Pumpkin Pasties. Yes, you heard that right, they are PASTIES not pastries (I made sure to clarify to my parents that I was not referring to the Janet Jackson mishap clothing item! 😛 )
We used pre made pie crust to make these a little easier!
They were very simple to make. Students just had to mix up the ingredients in a bowl, put the filling into the pie crust, fold the pie crust over, pinch the edges with a fork, and bake!
My amazing cafeteria ladies baked these for me while we got ready to watch the movie.
The last thing we had to do to get ready, was mix up our Butterbeer, of course! *I prepped this the night before by making the brown sugar syrup part of the recipe. I followed this amazing recipe from Just Sweet and Simple.*
I gave each student a scoop in their cup. Then, each house got a 2 liter of Cream Soda to top off their cup. They whipped it up with a spoon, and it was delicious and ready to enjoy!
Butterbeer in hand, my little wizards were ready for the movie!
While the students were watching, the Pumpkin Pasties came out of the oven. I used this awesome rolling cart to bring them around to the students while they were watching, and my kiddos said it was just like the treats cart on the Hogwarts Express!
We finished the movie right after lunch, and got ready for the rest of our celebrations!
I sent out a Sign-Up Genius for parents to sign up to bring HP themed treats into the classroom. I asked for a few things for sure: Polyjuice Potion Punch, Chocolate Covered Wands, drizzled popcorn, and some kind of cupcake. I was BLOWN away by my parents’ creativity! Here are some photos of what we had:
(PolyJuice Potion Punch, Drizzled popcorn, Butterbeer cupcakes, and Accio Pops!)
(One of my students made this AWESOME wand box for the chocolate covered wands!)
(Chocolate covered wands and chocolate frogs!)
(Sorting hat cupcakes!)
(Very creative Butterbeer cupcakes! I’m obsessed with the “froth” and the straws!)
So yes, my kiddos were definitely spoiled on this celebration day! But, they worked SO incredibly hard throughout the entire month as we read this book. I absolutely loved watching their eyes light up with passion and enthusiasm. The feeling of knowing that I was helping instill a love for reading in some of these kiddos is unbeatable.
I encourage beg you to bring the magic to your classroom! You won’t regret it!
Thank you for taking the time to follow me through this entire series! I can’t tell you how much it means to me to be able to share my little ol’ classroom with all of you. 🙂
Are you convinced? Ready to take the plunge? Do it. This novel will change your classroom and readers forever! Click here to purchase this unit and get started!
Also, I will be doing a FAQ post on some of the questions many of you have asked over the series. So if there is anything else you have been wondering about, please ask in the comments and I will add it to the post! 🙂
Have a magical night!
I was looking for your TPT for Harry Potter and I could not find it. I will be patient because I know it is a busy time of the year right now. I do have a question about cost. How much do you think you spent of your own money on this unit? I was just curious on what to expect. I'm not apposed to spending money because I do that a lot in my classroom. Have a great Christmas break!!
Is your unit available yet? 🙂
My kid’s are great fan of Harry Potter series. They have watched all of Harry potter series. You know last year my son demanded to celebrate his birthday in Harry potter theme at LA venues, and every kid enjoyed his birthday party.
You are amazing! I am reading HP with my son and I wish he could be in your class! Heck, I wish I could be in there!
What an Amazing unit!!!! So much creativity and passion in this, I love it! Well done!
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