Harry Potter Camp

NOTE: This is not my lesson. I transferred it (and others - see the header below) to waygook.org from a teachers' site which has now closed.

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#original uploader: Gamesteacher
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"I taught a week long summer camp based on a Harry Potter theme for about 20 middle school students.

Lesson Plan

Instructor: Native English Teacher – Pat Copeman

Student Level/Grade: Elementary, Middle school all grades – all levels just adapt the materials according to your students abilities.

Lesson Title: Hogwarts School for Witches and Wizards

Class Aims/Goals: using adjectives, encourage co-operative learning, learn brainstorming techniques, learn and use new vocabulary, teach basic card game rules, introduce cooking terms and learn to follow a recipe, writing practice, reading and commenting on others’ writing, introduce class discussions, introduce basic math skills, choose and perform one spell, and most of all – TO HAVE FUN!!!

Length of Lesson: one week

Steps and Activities:
Pre-Activity/Preparation/Materials:

Decide which of the activities from the craft and activity sheet you are going to do and write down the supplies needed.

Basic supplies include:
- Large sheets of poster paper for creating house banners,
- house scarves printed out, laminated, and glued to felt to make house labels, there are 4 houses and there should be an equal number of labels from each house. Ie: 20 students would have 5 labels from each house. A hat for sorting.
- 4 sets of coloured felt pens,
- 4 sets of silver, bronze, and gold felt pens,
- 4 sets of sparkle glue,
- Sparkles in various colours,
- Plain pencils – 1 or 2 for each student for wands and/or brooms,
- Gold and silver garlands, stars, sequins, beads,
- A4 coloured paper in blue, red, yellow, green, and lots of black,
- Various candies such as gummy worms, chocolate sunflower seeds, and various other kinds as well as 2 different colours of pop – for the potions class,
- Containers decorated and labeled to hold the candy for potions class,
- Bowls and spoons for each student to prepare their spells,
- Flower pots, dirt, and seeds for Herbology class,
- Spell book from Bogglesworld,
- Potions book from Bogglesworld,
- Wizard cards from Bogglesworld,
- Dry ice would be amazing to have to make the potions class really spectacular.
- Print out and laminate bookmarks and Hogwarts diplomas as goodbye presents.
- Snacks, pop, and treats for the final day party.

The classroom should be decorated as a Hogwarts classroom. I made signs for the doors saying “Welcome to Hogwarts”, around the room I had classroom areas set up as Potions Class, Herbology Class, Charms, Hogsmeade Candy Shoppe, Wand Shoppe, etc. with appropriate pictures hanging in each area. An Owl Post area is also fun to have.

Activity/Lesson:

The activities can be done as the whole class together or different stations can be set up in the classroom with different groups working on different activities in rotation. It is important for the craft activities that new craft supplies be provided for each group as they reach that station.

1. The first activity is to sort the students into their houses – Gryffindor, Ravenclaw, Hufflepuff, and Slytherin. I had a hat with the house labels and each student had to reach in and pick one. This sorted them into their houses. Then in each house, the students had to pick a Head Student who received an additional label.
2. Within their houses, the activity was to discuss the attributes of their house and the house mascot. Then they created a poster for their house using the house colours, mascot, etc. I had them create an acronym from their house name.
3. Next the students created their wands. They decided what attributes their wands would have and explained their wands to the class.
4. Materials were provided for students such as word searches, crosswords, etc. to be used in and around other activities.
5. The Wizard Cards can be used for a variety of different games such as concentration or Go Fish.
6. The Potions Class uses the Boggles World Potions Book. This teaches basic cooking terms. The students read the potions recipes and then create their potion using the pop and candy provided – they can then eat their potion. If you have a scientific bent, you could create real potions for them to mix up.
7. The Spells Class uses the Bogglesworld Book of Spells. Students choose one spell and then perform it for the class and the other students guess which spell it is.
8. Write their own Potions recipe or Spell.
9. For Herbology class have them plant or put in a water jar seeds such as beans for sprouting,
10. Send each other Owl Postcards or Howlers,
11. Any of the additional crafts listed on the crafts document.
12. You can also use any of your usual camp activities and just give them a Harry Potter feel. For example, you can have the students draw and colour owls, cut them out, and then using books to fan them, have a race to see which owl is fastest. 4 students at a time is best with the winners going on to the semi-finals and finals.
13. Voldemort Game or Halloween Harry Potter using different vocab.


Post-Activity/Review:

Check comprehension with crossword puzzles.
Hand out bookmarks and Hogwarts diplomas.
Perform the chosen spells.
Count up the house points and award prize to winning house.
Have a Hogwarts goodbye party.

See the attachment with website links for pictures, worksheets, crafts, etc. I have also included a downloadable MS Word document of this lesson plan."

#end original text

Ok, I've "borrowed" from this site long enough. It's time to give back.

This summer, a few friends and I developed the greatest summer camp of all time...Harry Potter. I thought, what with the release of the first segment of the final movie occuring right around Winter Break, well, it could be a pretty popular theme among students.

The camp is pretty self explanatory, per the Master lesson plan attached. It's a 5 day, 9-12 camp taught in the spirit of Hogwarts. As such, there are 4 "classes" a day. Potions, Care of Magical Creatures, Defense Against the Dark Arts and History of Magic. And the first day, the camp is introduced, a ppt overviewing rules and classes was presented, and students were sorted into the four "Houses", which were their teams for the remainder of the week. Good behavior/participation was rewarded, while those who acted up lost points for their house. Keep a running tally, and award "House Cups" (or, you know, a bag of goodies) to each student in the winning house at the end of the week. We also did a number of crafts/"House" sorting activities on that first day as well.

For the potions class, there is one powerpoint for the whole week, and we created two potions a day. We used different colored juices, sodas, and powerades for the liquid ingredients, and different candies for the solid ingredients. Use your imagination, and then label jars/bowls of the treats accordingly.

Throughout the week, we watched the first Harry Potter movie, watching about 25 minutes each day.

Because my roommate and I were teaching the camp at separate schools and therefore saw each other every day, we also added a fun review/warm-up activity: Owl Posts. Each day the students at my school would write an "owl post" to a student in the same house (Ravenclaw to Ravenclaw, etc) of a "different" Hogwarts. There would be a theme/question for them to answer...Who is you favorite character, what was your favorite game today, etc. At night, my roommate and I would swap owl posts and deliver them to our own school the next morning. The kids loved it! For those who can't do this, perhaps students could simply write to each other each day.

Anyway, take a look at the Lesson Plan and the material to get a better idea of the Camp layout.

The original idea for this camp was taken from a teacher on one of these websites...may even have been Waygook, but I honestly can't remember. So...due credit goes out to him!

Enjoy!

And, here are the rest of the materials, including the original Lesson Plan.

Winter might be too cold, but you could try playing quidditch. I might try this next summer.

Here is an article about people playing quidditch.

http://www.usatoday.com/life/lifestyle/2007-11-26-quidditch_N.htm



http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quidditch (go to the bottom where it talks about muggle quidditch)

Wow, this is amazing, thank you so much for sharing! What a lot of time and effort this must have taken you!!!
I've just been looking throught the ppts and have a few suggestions to make:
1. bullet point your facts so the slides are easier for the kids to read. I once heard in university that the more words on a slide, the quicker the reader tunes out. Make it short and to the point.

2. What about adding a "key words of the day" section. I know that my co will want this to be more "educational" so maybe for each day there are 5-10 new key words (depending on the level of your students). At the end of the class, the password to get out is telling the new words (or some of them) to the teacher.

3. I'm adding some "tasks" and "grammar points" to the ppts, again to appease the co. For example: Before the shoemaker story (elves ppt) I'm letting them know their task is to find and write down all the past tense verbs in the story. The house that can find the most earns 20 points for their house. At the end of the shoemaker story we'll talk about these. Also, at the end of the shoemaker story we're going to talk about "pair of ~". What kind of things come in "pairs"? For each correct suggestion they make (ie: "pair of glasses", they can get 10 points for their house.

Anyways, I hope everyone can make some use of my suggestions and again, thank you so much for posting all these terrific materials!!

Hi - first off thanks for the great resources!
I have a few questions about some of the activities that you have in you lesson plans but there aren't any details of. Sorry if it seems obvious!

1. How did you make the wands
2. What were the cauldrons for/made from
3. What are these: Goblin Draw/Dance of the Fairies/Electric Shock
4. What is 'shipwreck'

Thanks again!!

@gcas123:
Sorry - I don't have the letter anymore. It was basically just a document from McGonagall welcoming the "new students" to Hogwarts, etc. Worked for 5th and 6th grade, but was way too complicated for 3rd and 4th.

@jille86:
Great suggestions! It'd be great if people posted edited material on here for all to use! Improvements are always welcome.

@abipawlowski:
1) one teacher had students decorate pencils with different materials, and that worked out well. i had plastic stick-things i picked up at emart, and then had the kids paper mache a cool covering on it. turned out really cute!
2) cauldrons were just some plastic bowls decorated with paint/markers. they were used to make the potions each day.
3) You can find these games in the "HPDefenseAgainst..." document.
4) Shipwreck...I honestly can't remember. There were a few of us who created this together, and I never used that, whatever it was. Sorry!

@carlita and CFWteacher:
The materials were created for grades 3rd-6th elementary. I adapted the lessons and ppt's for the different levels each week, but not sure which levels I kept and posted. It all got a bit unorganized after camp was over, and I only kept one of each. Probably a bit all over the board - feel free to adapt anything and everything to fit your school's levels! But it was created with elementary school level in mind!

I can't remember if I put this in the material above, but I also had the teams do a scavenger hunt the last day, with different clues from the 1st movie, such as, "Where did Hermione, etc, fight the troll?" (bathroom). It was abig hit, but I unfortunately don't have a copy of the clues anymore. I definitely suggest putting one together though!

Everyone else:
Thanks for the feedback - hope it can be put to good use!

Quality idea with the Harry Potter theme. I'm in the middle of my planning, using a bunch of the ideas that everyone generously posted. Gotta love this site! Like so many folk out there I started feeling guilty about taking all the time. So, this is the first of a bunch of resources I'll be posting over the next week or so.

I haven't used this yet, so if it doesn't go down well, or is too complicated then hey, I tried haha. The idea is that teams try to take Harry through a series of situations (some luck; some memory etc) and collect the right tools to kill Voldemort. You can obviously adapt it for whatever vocab/level you want to focus on, or make it easier etc. I quickly typed up a bunch of rules to go with it - again, change them or whatever. Please let me know if you have any improvements, because everyone thinks differently eh.

There's a few different ways to get to the correct ending.

Cheers

I liked the idea of the scavenger hunt. After some intervention by my coteacher, the clues turned out very simple but I still think the kids will have fun.

If you are reading this, you should post any materials you have made. Even if they are not suitable for most people, its interesting to show co-teachers what other schools dare to try with their students. I am not really allowed to challenge students (or play active games) and I am trying to show that the world will not end if we branch out into sentences outside of the textbook.

Does anyone know where we can find the movies or interesting movie clips to show in class online? I want to show my kids about 30 min of one of the movies to get them excited and interested and then i am going to have them read a page of the book...

ill be honest, i have never read or seen the movies so any help what parts to pick would be great:)

Do yourself a favor. Download it and watch it. Then pick your favorite part, or the most relevant part, to show to your kids. That way, you will actually have an idea of what the wizarding world is like before you teach a camp on it  ;)

Wow, this is amazing, thank you so much for sharing! What a lot of time and effort this must have taken you!!!
I've just been looking throught the ppts and have a few suggestions to make:
1. bullet point your facts so the slides are easier for the kids to read. I once heard in university that the more words on a slide, the quicker the reader tunes out. Make it short and to the point.

2. What about adding a "key words of the day" section. I know that my co will want this to be more "educational" so maybe for each day there are 5-10 new key words (depending on the level of your students). At the end of the class, the password to get out is telling the new words (or some of them) to the teacher.

3. I'm adding some "tasks" and "grammar points" to the ppts, again to appease the co. For example: Before the shoemaker story (elves ppt) I'm letting them know their task is to find and write down all the past tense verbs in the story. The house that can find the most earns 20 points for their house. At the end of the shoemaker story we'll talk about these. Also, at the end of the shoemaker story we're going to talk about "pair of ~". What kind of things come in "pairs"? For each correct suggestion they make (ie: "pair of glasses", they can get 10 points for their house.

Anyways, I hope everyone can make some use of my suggestions and again, thank you so much for posting all these terrific materials!!

I also had to make this a little more obviously educational. I organized the days into focusing on a particular class, such as potions or care of magical creatures, and I added some vocabulary and phrases for each day.

I'm also going to show part of the movie each day, but my co-teacher advised against putting it into the lesson plan since it might make it seem like I'm not really teaching. Also, I had to change the owl post every day to a different name for the same reason.

But this is just my lesson plan, but hopefully it might help someone organize their camp!

P.S. I'm trying to grow a plant for the herbology class, but I'm stumped as to what plant would be good for that. If you have any suggestions, let me know!

I was thinking of using this for Middle School Students. I want to try giving each of the houses one powerpoint. For example: Gryffindor: Dragons.ppt, Ravenclaw: Quidditch.ppt, Hufflepuff: Centaurs.ppt, and Slytherin: Unicorns.ppt.

On the first day I will hand the slide handouts of each powerpoint to the students and explain that they will, as a house, present the information. They have the choose the relevant words to put on the board before they present. Then each student must speak at least one time. They also need to be ready to answer questions from me. Each question they answer correctly they will earn points for their house. Wrong answers won't lose points though (don't discourage them).

I plan to give them time the first day to practice, ask questions, and have me model it a little bit.

Attached is my updated Lesson plan (mind you it hasn't changed that much...but I figured I'd post it anyway) 

I made a PPT on how to make an origami unicorn.
Hope this helps.

Wow, you guys are all amazing. It was hard for me to sell this to my teacher because she didn't really want anything creative, but since it's not up to her, I'ma do it anyways! I LOVE HP!

I have another idea... I saw in the lessons section someone did a lesson on imperatives. I plan to have a Charms Class where they learn "spells" (read: imperatives), then we do the Cha Cha Slide. =D

Here is my lesson plan for the week. My teacher veto'd the movie showing, and I guess with only 2 hours a day, that's more than fair. That way we can try some other fun things. And making kimbab for Potions. =D

here's an intro ppt for schools who wont let you show the movie - or only very short clips.

I also had to make this a little more obviously educational. I organized the days into focusing on a particular class, such as potions or care of magical creatures, and I added some vocabulary and phrases for each day.

I'm also going to show part of the movie each day, but my co-teacher advised against putting it into the lesson plan since it might make it seem like I'm not really teaching. Also, I had to change the owl post every day to a different name for the same reason.

But this is just my lesson plan, but hopefully it might help someone organize their camp!

P.S. I'm trying to grow a plant for the herbology class, but I'm stumped as to what plant would be good for that. If you have any suggestions, let me know!
[/quote]

How about cress for your plant? It grows within a week so at least the kids can see something happening.

I was having difficulty trying to do the unicorn origami, so I imagine that my students will have trouble as well. Here is an easier unicorn origami.

not sure if this link is posted here or not. another ESL teacher did a harry potter camp  and put up their stuff on scribd.

here's the site link.  if you create a free account you can look at their profile. they have lots of materials that are usable for this idea.

http://www.scribd.com/doc/34627045/Harry-Potter-Acceptance-Letter

Am almost finished planning for this camp - here's a bunch of materials I have so far. Some are borrowed, some are adapted, and some are new. Cheers to anyone who I borrowed from etc.

more....

for the station game you'll need to print out slides 11-16 and stick them on the wall, spaced out evenly (as the stations). i'm going to make an intro ppt for the future tense - there's a few things i still haven't got round to making yet..