Hogwarts Theme 2016-2017

First Day of School 

After spending a year in the room nicknamed the dungeon, (because it lacked windows) I decided to embrace it and go back to one of my favorite classroom themes, Hogwarts! 

I had a sign in the room that said "Science is Magic that's Real!" My students have told me that since I left, the washi tape and the sign are still there!

Here is a picture of the room in action. I like having all my students out of their seats and at the board for math. This way they can collaborate and I can see their thought process as they go. Besides, who wants to sit all day? Math should be active and fun!

Moaning Myrtle is hidden in the safety shower. 

I kept the house points chart updated in the hall. I also kept a list of Hogwarts Honor students who had gotten a perfect score on their math or chemistry test. As you can see my Hogwarts school has slightly different house names. Each house is known for positive and unique qualities. 

The quidditch box was made by one of my students as a gift. Some of the students even got me a custom, handmade wand at the end of the year as a gift!

I usually like to give out stickers as rewards, but you can't have Hogwarts without Honeydukes candy! Students got to choose a treat if their house had the most points at the end of the month or they got a perfect score on their test. I like rewarding perfect scores because it pushes my students to double check their work before turning in their tests. 

I sculpted the mandrake myself and made the Monster Book of Monsters out of a cereal box.  

Mrs. Weasley's clock has my family's faces on it. 

To sort the students, I gave them each a clue they had to follow that would lead them to the crest of the house they had been sorted into. Here are some pictures of the clues and the students on the hunt.  

The whole school wanted to have the "Hogwarts" experience, so I created some different events that everyone could participate in. The one below became known as the "Frog Obsession of 2016". 

I hid 3 frog around the school and emailed that flyer to all of the teachers and posted a few in the hallways. By the next day the students were spending their free time in between classes searching for the "missing" frogs. All three were found within the first two days, so I posted another sign saying that the frogs had escaped again! This time I hid them in really hard locations. It took two weeks before they were all found. Teachers and parents got in on the action too and could be found snooping around before and after school with their kids. The prize was their choice of either a Rememberall or a box of Berti Bott's Beans. 

For Halloween, I decided to surprise everyone by adding a life size troll outside the girl's bathroom. It was a huge success! Get it? 

I also sent my students on a photo scavenger hunt for Halloween. Even my 1st period Chemistry class, that hardly ever shows excitement in the morning, really enjoyed completing it. 

 

 

Other Hogwarts events I hosted included a costume contest, Mrs. Weasley's baking contest, and a coloring competition that was open to the whole school. 

Someone left this in my room one day, the paper cake, not the baby.  Travis (my husband) surprised me by buying Aella (our daughter) some Hogwarts themed onesies to match my theme. 

In November, I decided the other wall by the bathroom looked a bit empty, so I made made a Whomping Willow.

Every December our school has a classroom door decorating contest. I ended up going crazy and decorating all of the science lab doors.

For the storage room doors, I made a giant Bertie Bott's Every Flavour Beans box. I also made chocolate frog cards of all the teachers that teach in the lab. 

For my own classroom door, I worked with my homeroom class to design and decorate it. We decided to make the scene in the Great Hall where Professor Flitwick is putting ornaments on a giant Christmas tree. The students all pitched in and helped make the giant fireplace and the decorations. 

 I love adding little details, so we put up a Yule Ball concert poster for the Weird Sisters and some Cornish pixies flying around. Also, since this is supposed to be the Great Hall, we included floating candlesticks hung with fishing line.

This is a nice memory I wanted to share as well. Our school supports a small local school that is isolated in the mountains. Throughout the year we sent them tons of supplies. This Christmas, our teachers took a van load of gifts and treats for them and they sent us back tons of fruit and nuts that they had picked themselves. All of the teacher mailboxes were full of hazelnuts, walnuts, apples, and pears the next day. 

 I had originally had a lot of events planned, but since I was also teaching static trapeze, coaching a math olympiad team, and coordinating all of the Week Without Walls international trips, I ran out of time. I'll leave you with my final and biggest Hogwarts event, the Chamber of Secrets!

One day, this mysterious message was left in the back of the Chemistry lab. 

(I hid it there so that unsuspecting parents on tour wouldn't see a strange bloody message on the wall. Yes, the troll was still up, but I didn't want to push my admin too far... )

I put the message up and waited until a student to raised their hand and asked about it, then I recited the speech below. Yes, I know I'm a total Harry Potter nerd, but if you're reading this then chances are then you are too. Anyways, even my students who weren't Harry Potter fans loved all of this and surprisingly their parents did too (I kept them updated in my weekly class newsletter). 

You all know, of course...  

...that Hogwarts was founded over a thousand years ago... 

...by the four greatest witches and wizards of the age: 

Godric Gryffindor, Helga Hufflepuff... 

...Rowena Ravenclaw and Salazar Slytherin. 

Now, three of the founders coexisted quite harmoniously. 

-One did not. -Three guesses who. 

Salazar Slytherin wished to be more selective...  

...about the students admitted to Hogwarts. 

He believed magical learning should be kept within all-magic families. 

In other words, pure-bloods. 

Unable to sway the others, he decided to leave the school. 

Now, according to legend... 

...Slytherin had built a hidden chamber in this castle... 

...known as the Chamber of Secrets. 

Though, shortly before departing, he sealed it... 

...until that time when his own true Heir returned to the school. 

The Heir alone... 

...would be able to open the Chamber... 

...and unleash the horror within, and by so doing... 

...purge the school of all those who... 

...in Slytherin's view, were unworthy to study magic. 

Muggle-borns. 

Naturally, the school has been searched many times. 

No such chamber has been found. 

The Chamber is said to be home to something... 

...that only the Heir of Slytherin can control. 

It is said to be the home... 

...of a monster.

Game Explanation: 

The first team to find the Entrance to the Chamber, collect Slytherin’s Mark, Riddle’s Diary, a Basilisk Fang, the Sword of Godric Gryffindor and turn them into me will receive a special reward. 

Your adventure begins once you find the Entrance to the Chamber of Secrets. Books, cleverness, friends, and bravery are needed to complete your task. The list of who is on each team is posted under the house points board. Enlist the aid of your entire house to help you and keep them updated on your progress.

Game Rules:

• Each house has until the end of January to complete the game.
• You may only play the game during your free-time, do not attempt to or ask to play during your class time. 
• You may only take the clue/game piece labelled with your house name on it. 
• You may not move or tamper with the other house clues. 
• Once you get your clue/game piece, put everything back exactly the way you found it.
• You may not ask for help from anyone not in your house or give help to anyone that is not in your house.
• Some parts of the adventure may require you to bend the rules, please do so discreetly…

Reward:

1st House to Complete the Game: 2,000 house points. Also the members of that house who participated will receive mini trophies for “Special Services to the School,” each filled with Hogwarts candy. 

Any other houses that compete the game before Feb. 1, will receive 1,000 house points.

This game took a lot of time to set up and plan. I wanted it to be an adventure/scavenger hunt with eight clues and tasks to complete along the way that followed along with the actual events in the story. I made four copies of each clue and labeled them with the house names so that each house would only take their own clue. 

The game began with the students having to find the entrance to the Chamber of Secrets. I'm sure if you've read the book, you can guess where it is right away, but I wanted to make it tricky. So I hid the entrance under the sink of a bathroom no one ever uses hidden in the school basement (clever right?). It took all the houses almost a week to find it.

After finding the entrance, the students found Slytherin's mark and this clue. 

PeskIpiksi Pesternomi!

Lockhart’s pixies have just flown off with your next clue. I’ll just ask you to just nip the pixies back into the classroom where they belong. 

Find a pixie flying around the school, take your clue, and hang the pixie up back up in Hogwarts with the others. (Pixies already hanging up in the Hogwarts room do not count)

 

I hid the pixies above the staff vending machine. The kids had to get creative to get their pixie down. I had quite a time getting them up there myself! The nice thing about this challenge is that when the teams hung their pixie back in our classroom, the other teams knew who had found the clue and who hadn't yet. I was also able to keep track of how far along they were in their adventure. The pixies were each holding the following clue. 

Ginny Clue
-Find “Ginny Weasley” and you’ll find the diary.  

-She will sign an autograph as “Ginny Weasley”
-She will not answer that she is Ginny unless you tell her the password.

Password: “What’s your favorite book?”
Her Answer: “Magical Me”

She will then tell you where to find the Diary.

I made one of the 4th grade girls my accomplice and gave her instructions on her role as "Ginny." She kept the following clue on her to give to teams that were able to identify her. She had also dressed up as Ginny Weasley for Halloween, so any students that remembered had another clue to her identity. 

Seek a Riddle

So finding Ginny was only part of the diary challenge, it wasn't like she was just going to hand it to them. The clue above led the students to check the library. I alerted the library staff ahead of time about the game so that they would be prepared. I hid the diaries and the next clue inside a book. I wanted to find a book with an author who's last name was Riddle, but had to settle on a book of riddles instead. Inside the book they found the diary and their next clue. 

I had hidden paper spiders all over the school and many students had noticed them right away. In fact, some clever students followed them right away and skipped ahead a bit in the game, but in the end they had to start from the beginning so that they could find the diary. The spiders led downstairs and through the gym and outside into the teacher parking lot. They ended up having to climb up a hill and the clues were inside a bag hidden on the fence. This is where the rule bending came in because they weren't really supposed to be back there. However, I supervised them so admin said it was ok. Besides in the book Harry and Ron had to follow the spiders into the Forbidden Forest, this was as close as I could get to giving them that experience. 

After following the spiders here is the clue that they found. I thought this clue was pretty straight forward, so I didn't add any other details. They just needed to check the "pipes." 

 I hid the next clue and the basilisk fangs behind the water fountain in the cafeteria. It's always leaking and sprays water everywhere so there is constantly a puddle around the bottom. Here is the clue they found.

To destroy the basilisk you will need one final item. The sword can only be retrieved under conditions of need and valor. Find Fawkes and perform a brave deed in order to retrieve the sword. 

I was super proud of the next part of the adventure. To quote Dumbledore, "It was one of my more brilliant ideas, and between you and me, that's saying something." 

I knew that in the book, the Sword of Gryffindor could only be attained by doing something brave, but how was I going to get them to do that? Thankfully we have an amazing Crossfit coach and gym that has these climbing ropes that go to the ceiling. I talked to the coach and got permission to hang a Phoenix and stick the swords to the ceiling at the top of the rope. The students aren't allowed to go on the stage unless it's Crossfit, so they wouldn't see the phoenix until the coach would be present to supervise. My trapeze skills came in very handy putting this clue up!

The back of the sword had the final challenge. 

To free Dobby and collect your reward, have four members of your house return Slytherin’s Mark, Riddle’s Diary, the Basilisk’s Fang, and Godric’s Sword while wearing mis-matched socks. 

No Socks, No Reward

Dobby must be freed! 

 That concluded the adventure. It took the houses between 3-4 weeks to complete the game during their breaks and free-time. The teams had to turn in Slytherin's mark, Riddle's Diary, the Basilisk's fang, and the Sword of Gryffindor all while wearing mis-matching socks to win. Three out of four teams completed the adventure by the February deadline. 

As a fun detail during the game,  Moaning Myrtle made an appearance each day in a different bathroom around the school.

While only my students were officially participating in the game, many of the younger kids had fun watching and helping them. I even set up a mini-version for another class to complete one day. 

Everything you read about came from my own head and was inspired by the wonderful books by J.K. Rowling. Please feel free to borrow my ideas and create some magic around your own school!