Hogwarts Classes: Care of Magical Creatures and Defense Against the Dark Arts

Our next two classes were Care of Magical Creatures and Defense Against the Dark Arts .  The weather was not cooperating in order for us to have all of the classes outside but for Care of Magical Creatures and Defense Against the Dark Arts it was necessary.

Our first class was Care of Magical Creatures.  The class started with an egg hunt.  I had found small dragon toys that were the perfect size to fit into plastic Easter Eggs.  We then hid them around the backyard and the girls were instructed that they had to find one egg each.  Once they found their egg they were to bring it to Hagrid's Hut (Bug-A-Boo's play cabin) and put it into a fiery cauldron to hatch.

I had found a large cauldron at the Goodwill Store and using stones from the backyard and red and yellow tissue paper I created a fire pit so the eggs could cook a little before they hatched.  While the eggs "cooked" we read from our lesson books on how to care for a baby dragon.  After reading from our book the girls were able to get their eggs from the cauldron and open them up to find a baby dragon that they could take home and care for.

Fire pit at Hagrid's Hut

The girls put their eggs into the cauldron

A baby dragon hatches

The next class was Defense Against the Dark Arts.  For this activity the girls would learn about the Patronus Charm and have to fight off a Dementor.  Like the sorting ceremony and the Quidditch positions I wanted the selection of Patronuses to be random.

I explained to them what the Patronus Charm did and what a Patronus was, how each wizard or witch had a Patronus that was unique to them and took the form of an animal that shared qualities with the wizard  or witch.  I found animal CHARMS at Michael's and made book marks representing each animal.

I found illustrations online of each animal as a Patronus and then found descriptions of each animals "magical" qualities.  I designed a book mark with the picture and description on the front and then on the back I included the meaning of the Patronus Charm and it's uses.

The girls lined up and they each drew a bookmark out of a bag to determine what their Patronus would be.   We then showed them the Dementor and taught them the "Expecto Patronum" incantation. 

The "Dementor" was a very small piñata that I covered with a contractor's garbage bag to look like a hood.  I cut out a skull using my Cricut and adhered it to the bag and we hung the piñata from a tree.  I filled the piñata with Hershey kisses (because chocolate helps you feel better and regain your energy after fighting off a Dementor) and a baseball bat was an enlarged wand that they would use to defeat the Dementor.

Each girl got their turn with the wand.  They stepped up, shouted "Expecto Patronum" and got to hit the Dementor.  They took turns until finally it broke.

We headed back inside for one last class...Potions.