A Day with Harry Potter!
Welcome to our “Instill the Love of Reading – DIY At Home Reading Camp” series. For this article, we’ll turn to the magical world of Harry Potter!
We hope this article helps your little ones find the JOY in reading! If you’re looking for more ideas on this camp series or activities to inspire kids to love reading, please feel free to check out our other At Home Literature Camp posts and Love of Reading.
A TYPICAL DAY
All kids are different and you can definitely vary your day with whatever works for you 🙂 But the gist of our day having our kiddos focus on some work books or online learning tools in the early morning, an intro to the day’s theme after they were done, some videos around lunch time, and themed activities (reading time, writing time, crafts, food crafts/snacks, and games or experiments) in the afternoon. Feel free to pick and choose whatever works for you 🙂
INTRO
Many may be familiar with Harry Potter. If not, feel free to check out the Wizarding World website and then head over to the local library/bookstore!
WHAT TO WATCH
As we had this at-home camp during the 2020 Pandemic Summer, we watched the Sorcerer’s Stone Chapters read by some of the actors from the movies in the Harry Potter at Home Hub. It looks like that Hub is no longer live, unfortunately. However, there are EIGHT Harry Potter movies as well as TWO Fantastic Beasts movies out there, so you can watch a few minutes of those for the camp day OR have a marathon with the entire family!
FOOD CRAFTS / SNACKS
If your kids are like mine, they’ll eat food they prepare for themselves way more readily than if I make them. Here are a few that were fun and easy for them to put together:
- Pretzel Broom Sticks. Take a mini pretzel, a small piece of a mozzarella cheese stick, put them together & you’ve got a mini-broomstick! (They would actually look better if you cheese was cut and frayed out a bit but patience is a virtue we’re still working on 🙂 )
READING
It’s no secret that reading helps prevent that summer slide. Some even say this is the most important. Here are a few related to our theme:
- Harry Potter Books!
- Who Is J.K. Rowling by Pam Pollack
WRITING & WRITING PROMPTS
Just like reading, writing helps prevent that summer slide by both encouraging their creativity but also their motor skills and penmanship.
If you’ve got a little one, have them trace words related to the theme: Wizard, Magic , etc..
If you’ve got older children, have them write a sentence or two up to a page or two (depending on their age). Encourage them to be creative AND give reasons for why they made certain choices.
- Imagine yourself in one of your favorite Harry Potter scenes. Would you just observe (like you moved through time with a Time Turner) or would you chat with the characters and make some changes?
CRAFTS
There is no shortage of crafts out there to help immerse you in the Harry Potter World. We followed a few from the Crafting Magic collection on the Wizarding World Site as these seemed pretty easy & the kiddos had fun picking from the Official Site 😉
THANK YOU!!!
Thank you for checking out our at home play / summer camp guide! Hopefully this has helped grow the love of reading in your home and/or even inspired more ideas! Feel free to browse and find more literature camp ideas here: At Home Literature Camp.
Also, if you haven’t already, check out some of our other at home play / summer guides: DIY Camps and our other Wizard Articles.
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Happy Reading!
