Chocolate Frogs and the Sorting Hat

    Well!  We had a pretty good week.  We got through the first 4 chapters of The Sorcerer's Stone and Cade completed all the reading comprehension sheets to go with them. That's something new for this year, we usually just discuss what we read.  He did great on the Spelling and Vocabulary tests.  Overall we had an engaging week. 
    It was so good that I wanted to surprise him with a treat.  I didn't tell him that I had ordered some frog candy molds on Ebay, or that they came in the mail.  While I was making our homemade pizza, (which is sooo delicious,) I melted a bag of milk chocolate chips and filled the molds then popped them into the fridge.  I was surprised when they fully set just a couple hours later.  I wanted to make the official Chocolate Frog boxes, but I don't have the extra ink.  I did attempt to trace one out and I was going to "color it", but I could not figure out how to properly fold it so it got a make shift square box for presentation.  I am hoping to be able to get the canon mega tank printer next year, so hopefully I can print out boxes for his birthday party. I will figure out the folds if it kills me!  Anyway, the chocolate frogs came out pretty good and he LOVED them. Big win!

    With no plans for this dreary rainy Saturday, I was looking for a project  (other than wiping my runny nose because, ugh! The allergies!) I decided to tackle the project I've been wanting to try...the sorting hat.
    So I started with a dollar store birthday party hat and a cardboard circle taped together with duct tape...

The next step was to fashion the eye ridges and mouth.  I thought about using paper, but didn't want to waste good paper and decided that since we only have a ton of plastic grocery store bags, that I would use them.  I rolled them up the shape and size I wanted, taped them with the duct tape and then taped them in place on the hat. I also took a sheet of card stock paper and made a cone to extend the tip of the hat so I could bend it over. 

    
    Once I had the shape of the face features how I wanted I used white glue and a felt like white fabric that I had on hand left over from Cade's FNAF Foxy costume I made for Halloween a couple years back, to cover the hat.  I was surprised how well the white glue held.  I had really wanted to get contact cement before attempting this project, but I really didn't have the extra money.  I used contact cement when I made the Foxy costume, and I love using that.  It's so easy to adhere pieces with it.  Anyway, I didn't think to get a pic during that process of covering it.  I didn't worry to much about creases and folds, because it's the Sorting Hat and he has plenty of creases and folds so I just went with it
    Once it was covered I got to work with painting it. I covered it with a reddish spray paint first cause I had it on hand and it was just a base coat to cover the hat and make it darker anyway.  Once that was dry I got to work with my acrylics and added the colors that would be the final project.  

    I really like how it turned out.  I still need to add the straps on the sides and the tie that goes around the base and ties at the back, but I need some more paint because, wow, This took a lot of paint.  Even with the base coat, it did not spread all that much. But for now this is what we have for a sorting hat, and I am pretty happy with it.

    So here's to seeing what next week will bring to our Hogwarts Homeschool!

First Years, First Day

    Our Hogwarts Homeschool has officially started!  After a week of review it was finally time to step through the wall and onto Platform 9 3/4 to board that Express to a new adventure. 

    It was a great first day. We started our Care of Magical Creatures/Zoology unit. We did that dreaded math and even that went well...lol We got our first spelling and vocab list for the year, and it was fun to pick out the vocab words from our reading as we dove in and read the first chapter of Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone before answering the comprehension questions that went with the chapter.

    But before we read, we needed a bookmark to keep track of where we were so we made a Ravenclaw bookmark from Red Ted Art. We just need some Harry Potter stickers now.

    So, we had an awesome first day.  I wish that we had tried a themed homeschool long before now because I feel that it really does add a bit of fun to a rather dull part of life, it breaks up the ordinary to make it a little more exciting and it lets us get even more creative with learning.

First Day Preperations

    Well tomorrow is our official "first day" of our Hogwarts Homeschool year.  We start reading Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's stone, do our first Harry Potter comprehension worksheet and themed vocab and spelling.  I love hearing, "I'm excited" from my son in regards to school.  It is great.
    So today I had the chance while he was out with his father to get a couple things done to start our school year off with.  The first thing was our platform 9 3/4 doorway.  I knew that I wanted to try this, I just wasn't sure what doorway I wanted to use for it.  I settled on the toy room.  As I posted in an early post.  I painted a foam board replica of the platform sign and the goal was to use it with a "brick wall" doorway to serve as the way onto the platform.  I used a plain white tablecloth from the dollar store, a couple of sponges and some red paint.  (I want to do the same thing for his birthday party next year, but I want to use an old white sheet so it's more durable I think.)  I think it turned out well.

    
    You can see our mischievous Loki sitting on the banister.  I am still waiting for him to try to climb it and rip it apart...lol

    I also found a stone print wall hanging at the dollar store in the Halloween stuff and thought that would make an excellent backdrop for our Hogwarts crest banner so it would look like it was hanging on a castle wall.

    And I finally got his acceptance letter and Train ticket framed and hung on his wall.

    Oh, and it's the picture that is crooked not my wall hanging abilities...lol

Cade was happy when he saw it all up and thinks it's real cool. Score for mom!!

    I want to attempt to make a sorting hat, but I haven't gotten that far yet...lol  I'm not sure if I can pull it off, but I am sure going to try.

    So here is to tomorrow and our first day as first years!!

    

A New School Year

    Well, today was our first day of the 2019-2020 school year.  We don't officially start our Hogwarts Homeschool for another week, as we use our first week for review and covering our outlines and just getting back into the swing of school "routine".  It was a great day though.  I was able to get the Hogwarts House Crest Banner done that I was working on a couple days ago so it could hang on our barren wall.  I think it turned out pretty well.

    Along with the normal review for the everyday subjects, we learned a bit about Harry Potter's author, J.K. Rowling and for art did our first beginner's wand.  (I have other wand making projects on our list to do over the school year, but this one seemed like a simple easy project to begin with.)  We basically followed instructions from Instructables Living that you can find here. We didn't do nearly as well as they did, lol, but it was fun and Cade made a wand he was pretty proud of.

Here he is rolling his paper for his wand.

His finished project.

    He wanted to incorporate the Deathly Hallows on the wand, so that's where the triangles, circles and lines come in on his design. I thought it was a pretty cool idea.

Wingardium Leviosa!  My goofball kid thinks upside down is better and likes the wider end for the pointer end.  Gotta love him!

    Overall we had a great day, and he even expressed the desire to learn more about J.K. Rowling and her personal life. I find that so cool!  I can't wait to see what is in store for this year!

It all starts with the Letter...

    You can't have a Hogwarts Homeschool without first having an acceptance letter.  I created ours from ideas I found online.  Pinterest has a ton. I found all kinds of Harry Potter related fonts by a quick Google search.  I, personally liked these from Harry Potter Fan Zone and these from Font Space. We are getting a frame for it so he can hang it on his wall.

We are actually starting school August 26th, but our first week is review and getting back into the habit of school, plus we need a couple art classes before we hit Hogwarts so we can make our wands!! (Not to mention that we just moved at the beginning of the month and I still have not found my glue gun, so a couple extra days will help...hopefully.)

He also has his ticket for the Hogwarts Express.  How else would he get there?  I printed this off from an online image.

The best part of everything, my son, the child that is not going to like school no matter what, has said, "he thinks he's actually a little excited for school to start this year."  I had to take his temp. Please, let that feeling last... Here's to hoping he stays excited through this year!  We'll be chronicling our Hogwarts Homeschool adventure here over the next school year to look back on and share ideas if anyone is interested.

What we mean by Hogwarts Homeschooling

    So what exactly do we mean by Hogwarts Homeschooling?  In our case, it's incorporating a Harry Potter theme into schooling as much as we can. It also means we get to transform our house-mostly upstairs, into a Harry Potter world theme. I am still working on things for that.  It will grow as the year goes on.
   I had already previously done the Hogwarts House Crests on canvas. Regardless of my son's hesitancy in Harry Potter, I've been a bit of a Potter head for a while...lol.

  
  And I just finished Cade's bigger canvas with his house on it yesterday for his bedroom door...

At the end of the last school year, when we decided we were going to do the theme for this year we put the Hogwarts Houses into a hat, (our sorting hat) and he pulled a house out. We did this so we could figure out what we wanted to do for his room.

I also finished this two nights ago.  Our Hogwarts Express platform 9 and 3/4 sign, (on foam board). I have plans for it, if it works, but I will reveal that later...

Over the next couple weeks, I plan to come up with and complete more projects in between life and lesson plans, but this is a start. At least where our new home decor is concerned...

    As far as schooling goes,  our main goal (theme-wise) is to get through all 7 Harry Potter books before school is out in June. Our weekly vocabulary and spelling words come straight from our planned reading for the week.  After our reading, we have reading comprehension worksheets I am designing myself. (So far I have written and put together our curriculum each year instead of using a commercial curriculum. That will change in a couple years, especially for math.)

    Our art class or what we are calling Transfiguration, (we are transfiguring things into art, right? ) will contain a lot of Harry Potter themed arts and crafts, (more decor for the house...lol) And our normal subjects will be hidden within the Hogwarts subjects as well.
    Charms class will be our language arts subjects. After all, charms rely on words, right? Of course Arithmancy translates into Arithmetic...good old fashioned math. History of Magic will be our US History class and Ancient Ruins will be our Geography, (which we will be focusing primarily on England.) We can't forget Defense Against the Dark Arts, which will be predominantly health classes dealing with anti bullying, fire safety, stranger interaction/stranger danger, online and web safety, and everyday home safety.  Flying/Quidditch well that is all part of P.E.  Muggle Studies will be music and anything that we have to cover that doesn't logically fit into any Hogwarts equivalent.  
    Now, quite a few classes will be part of our science curriculum.  We are starting with Care of Magical Creatures, in the Muggle world, that will be Introduction to Zoology. Of course this means a trip to the zoo, but we are also going to pick and research some of the more rare species that might seem like they should be in Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them. And watching that will be on the list of things to do for zoology as well as identifying species specific needs, nocturnal/diurnal/crepuscular identification, endangered and extinct and native to our state animals.
    Astronomy and Divination would be next up on the list.  We'll be doing Astronomy and (the theory of) Astrology.  Cade loves the night skies and has a great appreciation for nature and it's beauty. 
    Potions. Now here is a no brainer. Introduction to Chemistry.  We've done different "experiments" with chemical reactions and such, this will give us a great forum to build on that and hello Pinterest! Harry Potter experiments all over the place! Watch out Professor Snape! Here we come. 
    Alchemy was a bit harder to find a place for in our Muggle education.  What we settled on was an Introduction to Geology.  Studying the minerals and metals our earth is made from and rock formations and classes of rock.
    Lastly, Herbology. Another one that was easy to translate to Muggle.... Botany.  We've done a lot of studies on plants, what they need, classification and so forth.  For this class we will be visiting a plant nursery, focusing on edible plants/fruit bearing plants and medicinal properties of plants and herbs.

There's always room for more ideas if they come up, and in science we always like to leave space for topics that catch Cade's interest that he wants to learn more about, but that is our outline for studies in relation to our Hogwarts Homeschool theme.

About Us

    Hello and welcome to our new blog! We are homeschoolers in Northern, (very northern,) New York.  My name is Amy and I am a single mom to an awesome, and sometimes very trying, 11 year old son named Cade.  I am also my elderly father's caretaker which has given me the ability to stay home and homeschool my son. 

    We left the public school system in my son's last quarter of Kindergarten.  I had toyed with the idea probably before I was even pregnant.  I had hated public school and always wished I could be homeschooled.  My sister homeschooled her children.  My niece actually went all the way through school being homeschooled. So it was something I often imagined for my own children or child.  So after a year of Headstart and 3/4 a year of kindergarten I decided I wanted to try.  But, I didn't want to wait until he was going in first grade and find out we couldn't handle it and decide to put him back in public and have him be behind, so I pulled him the last quarter to get a feel for it.  If it worked-great! If not, he would commence with first grade in the fall- no harm, no foul.
    Needless to say we decided to stick with it and we are getting ready for our 6th full year of homeschooling.  Now, I won't lie and say its been all smiles and roses and a kid ready and loving to learn.  My kid has always hated school.  Anything that takes him away from what he could be doing is not pleasant to him.  Of course, he'd prefer to be homeschooled rather than go to public school, but don't expect him to like school...those are his words.
    Honestly I envisioned this much different. I envisioned instilling a love of learning. An eager face at the table just waiting for our next lesson, (what the heck was I thinking?) Ok, so maybe I was dreaming a little.  Maybe I read too many homeschool blogs that made it sound like it was the perfect solution to putting my baby boy in school. (Yeah, we were quite late in cutting the umbilical cord too.)
    Seriously though, he was doing fine in public, but I could see he needed one on one that he was not going to get in public school. And on top of that I had a million and one reasons that I really wanted to try homeschooling.  From the issues with bullying, violence in the schools, overcrowded classrooms, having more control over what and when my child learned certain things, being able to let him learn in a manner that was right for him, not the one size fits all plan that is public education, to having more flexible hours and days, (we are night owls, both myself and my son,) more family time, more parenting time and many other factors.
    So, even though it hasn't been the stuff dreams are made from every day, it's been an experience with the good outweighing the not so good.  Each year seems to have gotten better.  Last year was the best yet, (with the exception of our standardized tests-my boy and testing is not a fun thing.) We seemed to find a good rhythm and had a smoother year.  Every year I search for that one element that will make the year better.  Make it more fun.  Make my son look forward to learning and  enjoy it at least a little...
    I think I may have found it.  It's taken me two years to get him interested in Harry Potter, but earlier this year I finally convinced him to at least give the movies a try.  He gave in.  He actually found he enjoyed them, especially the first three, (which I also feel are the best of the series.)  Once I had his interest I proposed we have a themed homeschool year.  A Harry Potter year.  It would be the perfect year to do it.  After all it's the same year that Harry got his acceptance letter, 11 years old and in his 6th year of school. What would be a better idea than to become a first year at Hogwarts? He was game and I was excited...which leads us here to our new blog as we get ready to start our Hogwarts Homeschool.