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Harry Potter unit studies - help!


Melissa B
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After three girls that are all focused, diligent, studious, etc, etc, I have this boy that is the complete opposite. His attention span is approximately two minutes and he cares absolutely nothing about being educated. I held him back last year, so he is a six year old kindergartner right now. Thirty minutes of school per day is torture to him. After a great deal of thought, I have decided to try a unit study approach with him next year. I would like to try and prepare a first grade unit study around the first Harry Potter book. I've never written a unit study so would like some feedback on my first attempt. I think a monthly plan would work best for us. (I have also resorted to bribery. Completion of the entire first grade curriculum will result in the purchase of the Harry Potter lego castle. :rolleyes:)

 

Here is my first attempt at August.

 

Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone – Unit Studies

 

Aug. – Owls

Sep. – Trees

Oct. – Trolls/Halloween

Nov. – Sports

Dec. – Mirrors/Christmas

Jan. – Gems

Feb. – Dragons

Mar. – Unicorns/Centaurs

Apr. – Riddles

May – Heroes

Jun. – King Arthur

 

 

August – Owls

 

Read Alouds – Owls in the Family, Hoot, Dr. Dolittle

He reads to me – Owl at Home – Lobel (yes, this will take all month)

Poem to memorize – Owl and the Pussycat

 

Math

 

Writing well the numbers to 12

Examples from book (might do something creative with these):

12 times (pg. 9)

11 years (pg. 10)

12 hands (pg. 12)

12 balls of light (pg. 16)

 

Reciting/understanding numbers to 100

Harry’s letters as examples (use manipulatives to demonstrate – groups of ten)

Tuesday – 1 letter (pg. 34)

Wednesday – 1 letter (pg. 38)

Thursday – 3 letters (pg. 39)

Friday – 12 letters (pg. 40)

Saturday – 24 letters (pg. 40)

Sunday – 30 to 40 letters (pg. 41)

Monday – 100 letters (pg. 42)

 

Telling time to hour and half hour

Use soft clock to work on telling time.

Examples from book:

Half past 8 (pg. 2)

5 o’clock (pg. 5)

Midnight (pg. 8)

Six o clock (pg. 39)

Half an hour later (pg. 39)

Midnight (pg. 45)

 

 

(continued in next post)

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Language Arts/Social Studies

 

Read aloud chapter one – narrate (orally and in segments)

Harry’s address – 4 Privet Drive, Little Whinging, Surrey

Practice own address, phone number – writing them correctly

Discuss importance of family

Create large family tree including photographs and names

Discuss the use of Mr. Mrs. Dr. and Professor

Draw a picture of the Dursley family

Review the descriptions in the book

Vernon Dursley – big, beefy man with hardly any neck, a very large mustache (pg. 1)

Petunia Dursley – thin and blonde and nearly twice the usual amount of neck (pg. 1)

Dudley Dursley – wrestled screaming Dudley into his high chair (pg. 2) having a tantrum and throwing his cereal (pg. 2)

Draw a picture of Professor Dumbledore, Professor McGonagall and Hagrid

Review the descriptions in the book

Professor McGonagall – severe looking woman, square glasses, emerald cloak, black hair in tight bun, stiff (pg. 9)

Professor Dumbledore – tall, thin, very old, silver hair and beard both long enough to tuck into his belt, long robes, a purple cloak, high-heeled buckled boots, blue eyes, half-moon spectacles, long crooked nose (pg. 8)

Hagrid – twice as tall as a normal man, five times as wide, long tangles of bushy black hair, beard, hands size of trash can lids, feet in boots like baby dolphins, vast muscular arms (giant) (pg. 14)

Write their names properly below each picture

Draw our family – Discuss specific physical characteristics that define each of us

Write names properly below the picture

Find where we live on a map and find England (and Surrey.)

Discuss the distance apart and the idea of different countries.

Watch scene 1 of Harry Potter.

 

Read chapter two – narrate

Harry is now ten.

Discuss time / timelines

Create a timeline of our family for the past 50 years including photographs.

Draw a picture of Harry Potter

Review the descriptions in the book

Harry potter age 10 – small and skinny, thin face, knobbly knees, black hair, bright green eyes, round glasses held together with tape, thin scar on forehead shaped like lightning bolt, unruly hair (pg. 20)

Draw a picture of Dudley.

Dudley age 11 – large pink face, not much neck, small blue eyes, thick smooth blond hair, thick fat head (pig in a wig) (pg. 21)

Write their names properly below their pictures.

Watch scenes 1-2 of Harry Potter.

 

Read chapter three – narrate

Discuss how to properly address an envelope.

Look at envelopes sent to us.

Continue to work on properly writing our address.

Work on the days of the week (including spelling.)

Use Harry’s Letters as examples.

Tuesday – 1 letter (pg. 34)

Wednesday – 1 letter (pg. 38)

Thursday – 3 letters (pg. 39)

Friday – 12 letters (pg. 40)

Saturday – 24 letters (pg. 40)

Sunday – 30 to 40 letters (pg. 41)

Monday – 100 letters (pg. 42)

 

Read chapter 4 – narrate

It is Harry’s birthday.

Work on properly writing own birthdate.

Work on memorizing the birthdates of other family members.

Review family tree – make sure birthdates are on the family tree.

Boom, Smash, crash – (onomatopoeia) (pg. 46)

Discuss the idea of onomatopoeia – read some poems to demonstrate.

Friendly letter form (pg. 51)

Write a friendly letter, address it properly and mail it.

Continue to write a friendly letter and mail it each month.

Watch scenes 1-3 of Harry Potter.

 

Science

 

Prepare a book of owl facts.

Look through books on owls. Cut out or print out pictures of different owls.

Write three or so facts about each below the picture.

Owls to include (as per chapter 5, covered next month) – Snowy, Brown, Barn, Screech, Tawny, Eagle owl, and any others of interest.

Create a front page with a picture of Hedwig – title Hedwig’s Book of Owl Facts

Last page a painting, drawing or cut out of favorite owl. Written below – My favorite owl is the ______ because ____________ (or something similar.)

 

Create a book of snakes. Read about different snakes. Cut out/ print out/ draw pictures and label each picture with a correct name for the snake below. Snakes to include (as per chapter 3) - cobras, pythons, boa constrictors (and any others of interest.) Perhaps include maps of where each snake is found, particularly the Brazilian Boa described in the book.

 

Additional activities

 

Night time hike looking for owls

Learn the different owl hoots

Dissect owl pellets

Practice drawing owls and snakes using drawing book on birds and reptiles

Catch one or two of the snakes in the yard to examine more closely and then let go

Paint a picture or two to go along with the memorized poem (which I will copy out)

 

Bonus for completing all school work in August

Rent or Buy: Legend of the Guardians: The Owls of Ga’hoole

 

 

What do you think??? :bigear:

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:svengo:

 

Wow! Teach me your ways, oh wise one! This is incredibly creative.

 

Honestly, if I was a 6yo boy, I would love to attend your school. No, it isn't classical, but this sounds just downright awesome. Whatever it takes to get a kid excited about learning. Seriously, for a 6yo, this seems like enough. Of course, I have an 8yo (almost 9) boy who would love nothing better than to have a complete Star Wars curriculum:tongue_smilie:.

 

Good job Momma!

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I forgot to offer suggestions. Perhaps you can find a way to work in some history, specifically views on witches/wizards throught history. Maybe incorporate something about dragon myths. The WTM 1st grade science recs would fit in well. Just call it Herbology and Care of Magical Creatures. But really, you shouldn't have to add much.

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I made a whole unit study up, complete with notebooking pages, for HP 1. We had a blast with it. We learned about Owls {care of magical creatures}, well known constellations {astronomy}, herbs that were growing in our garden {herbology}, basic chemistry {potions}, & we did simple science experiments with big wow factor {magic..}

 

We also studied England & Snakes. We measured our Hagrid's size on the driveway. We looked at Biblical correlation's between the book and the Bible. We learned to average {he was the size of 3 average men}, learned how big a baby dolphin is {his feet were that size}, crawled into the cupboard under our own stairs with a sleeping bag to see how we'd enjoy it..

 

We made donuts/cream buns. We tried lemon drops. We made knickerbocker glories. We ate chocolate frogs and berttie botts every flavor beans.

 

Mm, good times, good times, good times!! :D I have all my plans tucked away because I was going to blog them for others to use.

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HP is what motivated my 7 year old to read for fun, rather than because Mom was asking him to. He would also love to come to your school. Actually, I would as well. Sounds like wonderful learning fun. :)

 

Also, I don't think it's too out of the norm for 6 year olds, esp. boys, to not want to sit and do schoolwork. I am betting you will see him change over the next couple of years with this regard. If he's anything like my child, the more active he is when learning (moving, being outside, creating things, etc.), the better. Like the poster above that measured how tall Hagrid is on the driveway with chalk. Go to a nature center to see some owls. Count 100 Legos then create something with just those Legos. That kind of thing. Not classical, I know, but engage them in learning first, then move more towards classical maybe? Just my .02 on wiggly 6 year old boys.

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Thanks for all of the suggestions so far. I do plan to add some sort of history and Latin later in the year as well as a daily exercise routine.

 

I am adding the driveway drawings to August's list. I think we will outline each family member and then measure each and finally draw an approximate outline of Hagrid around them all.

 

I do belong to the Hogwarts Yahoo group, but everything is individually listed in zip files and uses a LOT of memory. I'm also finding it hard to navigate in general.

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This is great.

I'll be the first to ask, can I have a copy of the chapters as you complete them?

 

Sure. There is no guarantee of greatness, :D but if you PM me in a couple months to remind me and include an email addess I will email you a copy. Hopefully I will have the whole year planned by then, if not I'll send you what I have.

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Wow, it looks great! We are just starting the first book and the kids are enamored. I was just thinking I would like to do something with the book...I was also thinking I would like to do a unit study or the like aimed specifically at my middle child (ds turns 7 today and is first grade). Thank you for sharing!

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You should really check out the yahoo groups (plural, as there is a "storage" site for each of the classes at Hogwarts) for the Hogwarts Summer School of Correspondence. They have a TON of stuff (textbooks, games, activities) already created. I even contributed a couple of card decks (owls, Magical Creatures, dragons) to use for playing math games.

Here is the url http://groups.yahoo.com/group/HogwartsSCS/

 

We did a course in potions (chemistry), charms (poetry), herbology (plants), care of magical creatures...

 

The kids received their assignments via Owl in the tree in our front yard...

 

So much you can do!

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You should really check out the yahoo groups (plural, as there is a "storage" site for each of the classes at Hogwarts) for the Hogwarts Summer School of Correspondence. They have a TON of stuff (textbooks, games, activities) already created. I even contributed a couple of card decks (owls, Magical Creatures, dragons) to use for playing math games.

Here is the url http://groups.yahoo.com/group/HogwartsSCS/

 

We did a course in potions (chemistry), charms (poetry), herbology (plants), care of magical creatures...

 

The kids received their assignments via Owl in the tree in our front yard...

 

So much you can do!

 

Alot of the files won't open and it seems really hard to navigate it.

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It IS hard to navigate, 'cause there is so much! Anything in particular you are looking for? I might have it already in my files.

 

I will take anything you have alot of the files won't open on mycomputer or they will but after I save them and try to open again it says windows cannot open this type of file. I wish everything was pdf lol

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It IS hard to navigate, 'cause there is so much! Anything in particular you are looking for? I might have it already in my files.

 

 

I have spent the day looking threw all this and I still say there has to be a better way to organize it more user friendly It would help if it was PDF. Yes there is ALOT here and it is pretty great actually but how in the world did you print those textbooks?? Some of them are like 80 pages.

 

Do I print one for each kiddo? That is crazy expensive

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I have spent the whole day searching out stuff LOL!! That group has sooooo much but it is so hard to figure out especially when it says such and such is located in another group and of course I cannot find a link to that group.

 

I have also been making potions bottles from some labels I found online and we have decided we want to redo my school room now Harry Potter themed of course!

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Not strictly HP but this site has some printables that might be a fun addition for "atmosphere": http://www.sparklebox.co.uk/search/search.html?q=potions%20lab

 

I love this site....I use a LOT of their printables. They do tend to be ink-heavy, though, so I usually send them to Staples for printing rather than drain my rather pricey ink. To print this one cost me about $6.

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Not strictly HP but this site has some printables that might be a fun addition for "atmosphere": http://www.sparklebox.co.uk/search/search.html?q=potions%20lab

 

I love this site....I use a LOT of their printables. They do tend to be ink-heavy, though, so I usually send them to Staples for printing rather than drain my rather pricey ink. To print this one cost me about $6.

 

 

That is pretty cool! Thanks

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There are many groups for each area-Astronomy, etc. I love these yahoo groups. We've used them for going on 4-5 years now.

 

 

How in the world did you print the astronomy book? It is quite a bit of pages. alot of the links say located in textbook classroom, but I cannot find any textbook classroom. I have emailed moderators but they have never answered.

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For those who decide to study the animals, I found these pages.

 

Rats:

http://www.zoomschool.com/subjects/mammals/rodent/Ratprintout.shtml

http://www.edupics.com/coloring-page-rat-i9784.html

 

Owls:

http://www.edupics.com/images/results/photo:0/query:owl

And not free, but 50 cents, in case you wanted some copywork and facts: http://www.currclick.com/product_info.php?products_id=64361{1}1

 

Toads:

This one has pages for a lot of creatures, one of which is toads (There's also one about beaks and feet which might be useful for owls, and some tree and plants ones which might be good for herbology): http://handsandhearts.com/Nature_Pages_Set2.pdf

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How in the world did you print the astronomy book? It is quite a bit of pages. alot of the links say located in textbook classroom, but I cannot find any textbook classroom. I have emailed moderators but they have never answered.

 

Some I keep on the ipod, some I print as a booklet-2 pages on each side of paper. I haven't printed off every single thing that we do from there. I have to be very selective and plan/print what I know we'll get through. I haven't seen anything about a textbook classroom. Are you talking about it being in a separate group? There are HSCS groups for every subject.

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  • 1 month later...

I have yet to start organizing! Next year they will be doing Hogwarts Distance Education (LOL) every Friday hopefully. I plan on using anything from the yahoo groups and stuff I come up with. I so far have a Gringotts bank in mind they can earn their monies by different things to spend at Honeydukes and the Weasly Brothers Joke Shop that will be made in some of my kitchen cabinets.

 

I have yet to figure out how everything will be studied by potions for chemistry astronomy arithmancy herbology care and keeping of magical creatures and about anything else I come up with. I know I am doing dragons. I made them some dragon eggs that are going to come in the owl post box I made and I bought every dragonology book I could get my hands on.

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Ok, in honour of this thread, I threw together a 10-week study for my upper-elementary daughter and shared it on my blog page, and I'll upload the journal/notebooking sheets and various links as we go along. Help yourselves if it'll be of any use.

 

This blogger did a unit on Harry Potter, you might find some ideas.

 

http://lapazfarm.homeschooljournal.net/unit-studies-weve-done/harry-potter-a-term-at-hogwarts/

 

You might have to search around the archives to find more posts on particular lessons, but it looks like fun.

 

Your unit looks really fun!

 

I have a bunch of stuff on my blog and will be posting more. If there is anything you would like to see just post t on the blog :)

 

So many incredible ideas! Keep 'em coming!

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  • 4 months later...

By any chance, have you uploaded or blogged these plans already? I would love to "borrow" your ideas for our school year. :001_smile: TIA.

 

I made a whole unit study up, complete with notebooking pages, for HP 1. We had a blast with it. We learned about Owls {care of magical creatures}, well known constellations {astronomy}, herbs that were growing in our garden {herbology}, basic chemistry {potions}, & we did simple science experiments with big wow factor {magic..}

 

We also studied England & Snakes. We measured our Hagrid's size on the driveway. We looked at Biblical correlation's between the book and the Bible. We learned to average {he was the size of 3 average men}, learned how big a baby dolphin is {his feet were that size}, crawled into the cupboard under our own stairs with a sleeping bag to see how we'd enjoy it..

 

We made donuts/cream buns. We tried lemon drops. We made knickerbocker glories. We ate chocolate frogs and berttie botts every flavor beans.

 

Mm, good times, good times, good times!! :D I have all my plans tucked away because I was going to blog them for others to use.

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  • 1 year later...

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