Flashback to the spring of 2017. School was winding down and I had a realization: we weren't moving. For the first time since Peter started school, we were staying in one place during the summer. Shouldn't we do something fun and exciting to celebrate?
That sent my teacher brain into overdrive. Phoebe was just finishing the Harry Potter series and Cooper was part way through. They were all very into the Wizarding World at the time. Lightening struck my brain and I knew what we should do with our summer: we would go to Hogwarts!
No, we didn't go to Florida to enjoy that actual Wizarding World of Harry Potter, though that would have been awesome. Instead, we experienced our summer through a Harry Potter lens.
First, I created Hogwarts letters for each child.
Then I made chore charts that fit with our theme.
The kids loved the idea and jumped right in. We each picked out an owl to take with us to Hogwarts. We also designed our own wands and came up with wizard names for ourselves, though I can't find pictures of either.
Then we had an airplane making competition and sent our owls soaring.
Of course we had to be sorted into houses. Thankfully we had a sorting hat. And we had several online quizzes to properly place us into the correct house.
I thought through the possible activities we would do over the summer and figured out how to make them into classes offered at Hogwarts.
For example, that summer we attended Potions (cooking) class. Each child had their own cookbook and was responsible to prepare (with help, depending on the kid) one dinner each week of the summer. This meant lots of planning and cookbook reading.
We studied Herbology by tending our garden.
We took a turn with Care of Magical Creatures by visiting the zoo here in PA.
And spending some personal time with birds at an aquarium while in Utah. I think this is how Harry and his cohorts felt when they met Buckbeak for the first time.
The living historical farm was a little less traumatic for animal exposure.
We also did Transfiguration (sewing and crafts), like these onesies we painted for my niece.
Astronomy class was easy thanks to the eclipse and a trip to the USS Enterprise in New York City.
History of Magic came in the form of reading the inspiration for the summer, lots and lots and lots of reading.
We found ways to tie in our adventures as well. We had a tea party, which is terribly British.
And we visited a library that even looked like Hogwarts.
We loved our Hogwarts summer and used it as the inspiration for our Halloween costumes that year.
We even kept our Hogwarts chore charts up until the following summer.
