The Warner Brothers Harry Potter Studios.

Harry Potter Bus

In January I finally went to the Harry Potter studios in Watford Junction. I have wanted to go since it opened but I was living in Korea at the time. I had waited until now to go as I wanted to go during Christmas.

Harry Potter Studios

You book your tickets before online for the time you want. They told us it would take about 2 hours to look around. They said the shortest anyone had taken was 45 minutes and the longest was something like 8 hours.

We got the train from Euston to Watford Junction and then took the special studio bus to the studios. There we collected our tickets from the booth. The lady behind the counter. In fact all the staff seemed quite friendly and welcoming. It was a great atmosphere.

Chess pieces 

Inside I went to the shop as I wanted a Hufflepuff scarf and wand for the photos (I'm so cool...).  I could have gone crazy with the stuff they have there but I set myself a budget.We then joined the queue, passing the cupboard under the stairs into the start of the tour. You are led into a small room full of international posters from the Harry Potter movies. Here your tour guide asked your Hogwarts House and everyone gets excited!

The cupboard under the stairs

Korean Movie Poster for Harry Potter

Going into the Great Hall

We then went into a room with a big brown door. This was the door that led to the great hall. You wouldn't believe how excited I was at this point. If it's your birthday you were asked to go to the front for photos and to go into the hall first. We hung back to have photos, but they rush you in as the next tour starts soon after, so be quick if you want photos.

We went in January so the Christmas at Hogwarts decorations were still up. It was wonderful walking into the Great Hall with all the Christmas trees around and the fire places roaring. You get about five- ten minutes to look around until the next part of the tour. The guides all really know their stuff and seem to enjoy their work. In the Great Hall you can see costumes worn by the actors and actresses in the Harry Potter movies. It is quite freaky seeing these dummies with no faces.

The Great Hall

The Great Hall

The professors 

The Great Hall

You then see the props used for the Yule Ball and more wigs and costumes. After this you can go around on your own free time.

Entrance to Dumbledore's office

The Fat Lady

Here you can see Dumbledore's office, the Gryffindor common room, the gate for Hogwarts, the Entrance for Dumbledore's office, the potions classroom, the Weasley's house and Hagrid's homt to name a few.

Dumbledore's office

Leaky Cauldron

Gryffindor Tower

You can then go into a green room section where you can have a video of you riding a broomstick made or there are photos of the Weasley car or riding a broomstick. I did both of course!

After this you have the Ministry of Magic and more of the darker scenes from the later Harry Potter movies.

Ministry of Magic

Umbridge's office

This then leads to a cafe where you can have a proper cup of butter beer! We then went outside which is my favourite area with the Hogwarts bridge and the Knight bus. There is also the Weasley car and Hagrid's bike for photo ops.

Knight Bus

Godric's Hollow

This then leads to the behind the scene making of Harry Potter with the magical creatures including Dobby. You are then lead to the amazing Diagon Alley!!!! It's surreal walking down Diagon Alley and seeing all the different shops.

Diagon Alley

Ollivanders

There is then a corridor which shows the making of the smaller items used in the Harry Potter films such as newspapers. This leads to Hogwarts. As it was Christmas it was covered in snow and looked amazing!!!

Hogwarts

This was two years ago so there is now the Hogwarts express and in March the forbidden forest will be added. I really want to go back and see the changes and see where they have added these extra features. I might go at Halloween next time.....

Harry Potter Camp Regular

Regular Camp - 6th January - 17th January

Flourish and Blotts

Our regular camp is set into 40 minute periods. Students see each teacher at least once a day (4 periods, but only 3 teachers. We see some classes twice.) Over the whole camp we see each class around 12 times. The grades are 3, 4 and 5. Each class consist of around 20 students.


Day one starts with the opening ceremony. We then start our first lesson of the camp.


Lesson 1 - Introduction, sorting in to Hogwarts teams, rules and start making team posters. 

I gave gallons and points for the teams who tried the hardest.


Lesson 2 - Shopping in Diagon alley. 

Students have to buy all the items on their shopping list. The winner is the student with all the items and the most money left over. They use the phrases 'How much is this?', 'I'll take it' and 'It's too expensive!'.

Marauders Map

Lesson 3 -  Hogwarts ties.

 I made a paper cut out of a tie. Students drew around the outside onto felt. They then cut it out. They wrote their names on the side with pen marks. On the reverse side, they stuck stripes of felt. On the name side, I then used a hot glue to stick a pin.

Hogwarts Ties

http://thebrilliantcraftytype.blogspot.kr/2012/04/felt-hogwarts-ties-tutorial.html

Magical Menagerie

Lesson 4 -  Magical beast.

 They had to create a new creature from a hybrid of 2 of more animals. The higher grades had to write about their animal. I chose the best picture and the most creative animal (as some of the boys hate colouring).

Lesson 5- Finish Magical beast lesson and start bookmarks.

Bookmarks (see low level Harry Potter camp). 

Lesson 6 - Finish bookmarks after laminating.

 Make the paper for maps using teabags. Leave to dry until next lesson.

If time we used the photo booth.

Photobooth

http://blog.uniquelygrace.com/2012/06/prisoner-of-azkaban-wanted-poster-photo.html

Lesson 7- Make map.

Honeydukes

I went through vocabulary with students before and they wrote down the translation. They then had to design their own magic school. Coins and points for the best. We used the below link to watch how to fold the paper.

Marauders Map

http://www.activityvillage.co.uk/marauders-map

The students then had to find the missing animals. I told students the pixies let all the Hogwarts animals out and they have to find them.

Team posters

Lesson 8-9 -  Dragon egg drop. 

We dropped an egg from a window. Students have to use straws and tape to make a way to protect their egg from breaking.

 I started dropping the eggs from a chair for one team point. Then a table for two points. If their egg survived after being dropped out of a window they got 5 points.

Only 2 eggs out of 12 survived!

I recommend putting the eggs in plastic sandwich bags to save cleaning up.

Lesson 10 - Predictions lesson. Teams had to guess what will happen. If they predicted right they got a point.

lesson 11- Mafia game (changed into a Harry Potter version). My students loved this!

Lesson 12- Scavenger hunt and raffle.

Magical Animals

 I put words around the school. They had to use the clues to find them and write them down.

We then announced the winners and did the raffle for the sweet shop.

We also did a house cup. Winners of games won points. They also won points for answering questions and trying hard.  I announced the winners on the last lesson, just before the raffle.

Magic maps

Lots of the lessons were student orientated. The students had to work in their teams (we gave extra points for team work). All students really enjoyed the decorations and lessons.

It feels great to have finished my last camp. Only six weeks until I leave and only 3 of them are working days!! Yay!!!

I put all my lesson plans on here. You have to register and post 5 times to download materials.

Other links for decorations!

http://www.waygook.org/index.php/topic,1026.msg422664.html#msg422664

Food labels

http://www.borealisblog.com/harry-potter-party/

Bertie Botts Box

http://www.pilgrim1987.narod.ru/bertiebotts.htm

Potion Bottle labels and sweet labels

http://www.overthebigmoon.com/?s=harry+potter

More potion labels

http://www.fantasyjr.com/printable-halloween-labels/

More free printables

http://onecreativemommy.com/harry-potter-party-games/

Fonts

http://www.hellopapermoon.com/2013/03/enchanting-and-magical-harry-potter.html

Book Covers

 http://www.littlehouseonthecorner.com/halloween-book-covers/

Honeydukes 

Harry Potter Camp Low Level

Harry Potter Camp

I am in the middle of my last camp. I gave my all to this camp. This is mainly because it will be my last ever camp. I started decorating and preparing at the end of November. My camp was from the beginning of January for two weeks. My low level camp was for a week from the 26th December.

Low Level camp - 26th December - 2nd January.

For my low level camp. I took the Harry Potter theme and based my day around this theme.

My low level students were 4th graders. They can not understand anything in English. Therefore, all the camp was quite simple. It mainly considered of teaching phonics and alphabet in the morning, followed my crafts in the afternoon.

I gave each student a file. This file was kept at school for the week. On the front I stuck brown paper. They decorated the front with their Korean name in English. I don't agree with giving kids English names. I think people should learn how to pronounce their names.

Wanted posters

On the back, I took a picture of them in the Sirius Black wanted sign. They stuck this to the back.Inside the file was a envelope. Here they put their gallons. They got coins for winning games and working hard. On the back on these coins, were letters. I used these for a raffle on the last day. This kept them motivated.

To also keep them motivated. I used the sorting hat to split them into teams. I found this worked the best. Every time they answered a question they got a sticker for their team. All but one tried their up most hardest,

Hogwarts ties

In their files, they put the phonic worksheets they did in the morning. If they were good we then did crafts and games for the last half of the day. I also made a magic ABC book for each student. It was art paper made into a book and covered with felt. They students drew a few letters of the alphabet into their books a day.

On day one, we explained the rules and made old paper.

Day two, we made school ties and took wanted pictures in the photo booth. I also brought in ice-cream. This seemed to motivate them......

Day three, we made wands and did the animal hunt (see regular camp) . This day they wore their new ties. they were sooooooo cute!

Magic wands

Day four, we made book marks. They coloured a picture in and decorated some card. I then laminated the card and folded it in half. We then stapled the picture to the card and attached magnets. We played magic freeze tag using the wands (see regular camp).

Day five, I had no co-teacher so I couldn't do much. We just did a raffle and finished our magic ABC book.

This camp was so hard on the first day. This was because none of the students knew each other and the fourth grade is the worst in my school. They don't want to do anything. They just seem to stare even when they get told in Korean. But, the house point system seemed to motivate them (except Gryffindor). In fact Slytherin was the best team....................

Preview of my last ever camp...

I'm getting really excited for my last ever camp in South Korea. I've started decorating my whole classroom as Diagon Alley and Hogwarts. I hope my students enjoy it as I have spent days on it. I'll write about where I got the print outs from etc, after I finish my camp. For now, here's a sneak peak....