May 2 is International Harry Potter Day!
Sometimes we have the best of plans, and then something happens. In this case, the plan was Harry Potter day at the library. The something that happened was car trouble. I did not want to disappoint Josh, so I devised Harry Potter Weekend at Home. I scoured the internet for crafts and activities I could pull off with the supplies I had around the house, then we got to the fun.
Music
To set the tone (literally), we cued up a Harry Potter playlist from Spotify. I’m sure you can find one on Pandora or wherever you stream your musical selections. Josh had fun naming the scenes that correlated to each song we heard. Don’t worry – he has only watched the first movie at the ripe old age of five.
Coloring
Who doesn’t love coloring? The variety of coloring sheets on the internet is mind-boggling. We went with these great drawings from Fun Money Mom. Now that we have a handful of them done, Josh uses them as paper dolls to recreate his favorite scenes from the books. Again, he’s only five, so he can only refer to the first two books.
Owls
This was probably my favorite craft I found. In this post by A Few Short Cuts, you learn how to take a washcloth and turn it into Hedwig or any other owl you would like. I had a 15-year-old terry cloth robe that I couldn’t part with since it was a gift, but it had seen better days. This craft was a perfect way to re-purpose it! Josh and I cut 12-inch squares from it to use as our owls. There is enough fabric that we will be able to have a full Owlery.
What You Need:
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Washcloths or 12×12 fabric, the fluffier, the better- Rubber bands
- Hot glue gun
- Ribbon
- Googly eyes
- Felt for a beak
- Scissors
What To Do:
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- Cut out triangles for the owl’s beak.
- Place your washcloth on a flat surface, so it looks like a diamond.
- Roll the towel from the bottom to the top.
- Fold your rolled washcloth in half.
- Take a rubber band and wrap it around the mid-point of the washcloth. This will give your owl a head and body.
- Fluff the “arms” of the owl.
- Tie ribbon around the neck of the owl for its scarf. I also added hot glue to keep it more secure.
- Glue on the eyes and beak.
- Take your owl on a tour of the house.
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Watch the full tutorial video here!
Wands
You cannot have a Harry Potter weekend without wands! There were also lots of options on the web for wands, but I wanted something simple for our project and went with the tutorial I found on Brisbane Kids. Sometimes, Josh can only do projects in 10-to-15-minute bursts, so this project was perfect. It did take the full weekend as we needed drying time between our base coats and handle coats.
What You Need:
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- Sticks
- Garden Shears
- Hot Glue Gun
- Paint
- Embellishments: we used cord, jewels, and ribbons
What to Do:
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- Find sticks: Lucky for us, our trees in the backyard are always dropping sticks. We scavenged for five twigs with the best wand potential. What makes for a good wand? We searched for fairly straight sticks without a lot of knobs or knots that had nice weight in our hands and could be easily trimmed with shears by an adult.
- Paint the entire wand with a base color.
- Create a custom handle grip. We used the hot glue gun to create the grip. Once it dried, we wrapped the cord around the handles and painted them a different color from the rest of the wand.
- Add embellishments. For me, it was jewels between the handle and the rest of the wand. For Josh, it was a red ribbon for the sparks flying out of the end of the wand.
- Have a wizard’s duel to make sure they work.
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I first shared my love of Harry Potter with my friend Robyn in 2005. I remember getting Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince the day it came out and staying up until 2 a.m. reading it – I may have cried, it’s ok. I am so excited to share this magical world with my son; weekends like this will make memories forever … at least I hope so.
