Thursday, August 04, 2016

Activities, Games, and Resources In Honor of the New Harry Potter Book: The Cursed Child

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On July 31, my hubby handed me a party in a bag: Harry Potter and the Cursed Child, one of my favorite book-reading snacks, and a bottle of Coke. Bless him!

Even though I wasn't super jazzed about reading a book in play form, I WAS super jazzed about reading MORE Harry Potter! Fans understand, right?! Had homeschooling not started the very next day, I could have read it pretty fast, but it took me 2 whole days instead. ;)

Quick thoughts: I thought it was brilliant. Reading mostly dialogue made the pages fly by. Loved meeting new characters and catching up with the old ones. Would I have rather read a normal novel? Yes. But this fan will take what she can get! That's all I will say because I don't want to ruin anything for anyone.


Now on to fun things to do involving all things Harry Potter.


Color Harry Potter House bookmarks. I found this free download at The Scrap Shoppe Blog.

I chose Gryffindor to mark my spot in The Cursed Child. I'd read some during the day while my hubby would read at night. My oldest son chose Ravenclaw, but I don't think he colored it. ;) My daughter chose Hufflepuff. She is on the 5th book in the first series, but since she knows the story from the movies, she can't resist reading The Cursed Child now that 3 of us have finished it.


Make a cauldron cake. Forgive me, this picture is from my son's birthday party 9 years ago, and it looks way too blurry any bigger than this.

I made a boxed cake and baked it in an oven safe bowl. The bowl MUST be greased and floured well for the cake to come out of it without a hitch. Many sites recommend leaving the cake in the pan to cool for about 10-15 minutes before taking the cake out of the pan.

Once the cake was completely cooled, I cut a lid out of the top of my cake - kind of like how you'd cut the top of a pumpkin off. I attached a doughnut hole to the top of the lid with frosting. I made buttercream frosting, dyed it black (Wilton food coloring), and frosted the cauldron and lid.

Before serving, I scooped out just a little bit of the cake from the top of the cauldron and filled it with some lime jello I'd already made. I added a few gummy worms to the jello and carefully put the lid back on. And there you have it - a cauldron cake!


Play Guess the Potion. Fill a variety of glass bottles with normal, easy-to-identify drinks such as water, lemonade, sprite, apple juice, orange juice, etc. Add a few drops of food coloring to each bottle to change the original color of each drink. Number each bottle. I know there are for more eye-pleasing ways to do this, but 9 years ago, I just used sticky tabs. ;)

The point of the game is for each player to guess the potion (type of drink) in spite of the wacky color by tasting each potion. Each player/potion guesser will need small paper cups, a piece of notebook paper, and a pencil. Have each player number their papers from 1 - how ever many potions there are. (Make sure you have made an answer key in advance.) Pour small amounts of each potion into paper cups and have the players taste and guess away! The person with the most points wins, of course!

*Funny side note: When we played this at my son's birthday party 9 years ago, there was one child who refused to play this game because he thought I was trying to poison him!! I promise, no children were harmed during this game. Okay, so food coloring isn't the healthiest thing in the world but it's not poison. ;)



Drink Butter Beer. We actually drank these last summer during a Harry Potter marathon. I made up my own recipe because I wanted SUPER easy. You will need 3 ingredients and that's it: Cream soda, whipped cream, and butterscotch sauce. Looks like Butter Beer to me!



Make a pumpkin smoothie and call it pumpkin juice. We enjoy pumpkin smoothies on the first day of fall every year. Been making them for probably 13 years now! They are delicious!! Click her for the recipe.


Sample Bertie Bott's Every Flavor Beans. Buy some Bertie Botts Beans candy. Close your eyes and pick a jelly bean. Put it in your mouth without looking and try to guess the flavor. 1 point for every correct guess. OR play the game Bean Boozled. In this game there are yummy flavored jelly beans and not-so-yummy flavored jelly beans that look the exact same! Hopefully you'll end up with a mouth full of more yummy than yucky. ;)



From Around the Web. I am AMAZED at all of the talented people out there who've come up with all kinds of Harry Potter fun. Now I am going to link to other people who are far more creative than I am.












Collect all of the books!



Collect toys, games, and accessories!We've definitely owned our share of costumes, wands, Legos, games, and action figures over the years. I never go anywhere without a drinking cup with a straw, so I may have to get the Harry Potter one I linked to! I think the toilet sticker would be pretty fun to have as well. ;) Oh goodness, I'm reliving all of my family's fun Harry Potter moments by going through all of these.




Decorate with Harry Potter!



Wow, Harry Potter just keeps going on and on. I've seen some really neat things that I didn't even know existed. I hope you've enjoyed looking through these images. If you see anything you like, I'd be grateful for you to click on the images and use my affiliate links!

What is your favorite Harry Potter Book? Who is your favorite character? Tell me in the comments!




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2 comments:

Unknown said...

Wow! Great collection of Harry Potter activities. Pinned it! I'm visiting today from The Mommy Monday Blog Hop.

Brandi said...

Thank you, Bonnie! I had so much fun reliving some of our favorite Harry Potter memories. :)

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