In Year Two of Hogwarts of Fairhope we took inspiration from J. K. Rowling's second Harry Potter book, Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets, in which Harry has to solve the mystery of who is attacking his fellow students. In the course of the action he learns about wizard dueling, battles Cornish Pixies, and faces a giant, carnivorous spider in the Forbidden Forest.
Our dueling club was a performing arts class. Campers memorized the names of spells and then choreographed duels, acting out the magical effects. The winner was usually the person who made the audience laugh the loudest.
Just as in the books, we had a Cornish Pixie infestation at Hogwarts of Fairhope and the campers helped us out by going into the Forbidden Forest (with an elf or professor) and hunting them down. Some of our bravest campers managed to pluck the Pixies from the web of our acromantula (created and generously donated by a parent volunteer).
In The Chamber of Secrets we are introduced to a darker side of the wizarding world, prejudice against people with "muggle" (non-magic) parents. Several so-called "pure-blood" students harass muggle-born students, and Harry and his friends take a stand against them. At Hogwarts of Fairhope we used this part of the story in our Defense Against the Dark Arts classes with the elementary age campers to talk about prejudice and bullying.
One of the sub plots in the book revolves around an eleven year old girl, Ginny, who finds an enchanted diary that writes back to her when she writes in it. She begins writing her innermost feelings in the diary, unaware that it was created by an evil wizard who takes control of her mind and uses her to do his evil bidding. At the end of the book, after Harry saves her, Ginny's father admonishes her not to trust any magical object "if you can't see where it keeps its brain." We used Ginny's story in Defense Against the Dark Arts class for the teenagers as a way to talk about online predators and how to stay safe while playing online games and on social media.
Other classes for 2015 were:
Transfiguration (cooking)
History of Magic (Magic the Gathering (tm) card game)
Spell Play (dance/music)
Charms (pottery, tie dye, found object assemblage)
Quidditch
Herbology (plant science)
Music of the Spheres (music, musical notation, rhythm)
Arithmancy (math games and stories)
Care of Magical Creatures (animal games, face painting)
Tales of Beedle the Bard (story time)
Dueling Club (drama)
Chartomancy (paper crafts, origami)
Magical Inscriptions (script writing, teens only)
Photomancy (cinematography teens only)
Here were the service projects each House worked on:
PhoenixFire: Patrolled the campus every day picking up all litter.
StoneDragon: Collected toiletries for the homeless. Our StoneDragons urged all campers to bring in small travel size toiletries, hand sanitizer, packs of tissues, toothbrushes, deodorant, and such and collected two large boxes full. These were donated to the food pantry at the Ecumenical Ministries in Fairhope.
WindHorse: Toy drive for charity. They collected gently used toys from all campers which were then donated to the Discovery Thrift Center.
WaveRider: Orchestrated a collaborative effort, in secret, to create a birthday card for the PotterTots Head of House for her birthday, which fell during camp. It was signed by every single camper and staff member, secretly, and presented to Madame Nelda of the Needles as a surprise during assembly on her birthday.
Our dueling club was a performing arts class. Campers memorized the names of spells and then choreographed duels, acting out the magical effects. The winner was usually the person who made the audience laugh the loudest.
Just as in the books, we had a Cornish Pixie infestation at Hogwarts of Fairhope and the campers helped us out by going into the Forbidden Forest (with an elf or professor) and hunting them down. Some of our bravest campers managed to pluck the Pixies from the web of our acromantula (created and generously donated by a parent volunteer).
In The Chamber of Secrets we are introduced to a darker side of the wizarding world, prejudice against people with "muggle" (non-magic) parents. Several so-called "pure-blood" students harass muggle-born students, and Harry and his friends take a stand against them. At Hogwarts of Fairhope we used this part of the story in our Defense Against the Dark Arts classes with the elementary age campers to talk about prejudice and bullying.
One of the sub plots in the book revolves around an eleven year old girl, Ginny, who finds an enchanted diary that writes back to her when she writes in it. She begins writing her innermost feelings in the diary, unaware that it was created by an evil wizard who takes control of her mind and uses her to do his evil bidding. At the end of the book, after Harry saves her, Ginny's father admonishes her not to trust any magical object "if you can't see where it keeps its brain." We used Ginny's story in Defense Against the Dark Arts class for the teenagers as a way to talk about online predators and how to stay safe while playing online games and on social media.
Other classes for 2015 were:
Transfiguration (cooking)
History of Magic (Magic the Gathering (tm) card game)
Spell Play (dance/music)
Charms (pottery, tie dye, found object assemblage)
Quidditch
Herbology (plant science)
Music of the Spheres (music, musical notation, rhythm)
Arithmancy (math games and stories)
Care of Magical Creatures (animal games, face painting)
Tales of Beedle the Bard (story time)
Dueling Club (drama)
Chartomancy (paper crafts, origami)
Magical Inscriptions (script writing, teens only)
Photomancy (cinematography teens only)
Here were the service projects each House worked on:
PhoenixFire: Patrolled the campus every day picking up all litter.
StoneDragon: Collected toiletries for the homeless. Our StoneDragons urged all campers to bring in small travel size toiletries, hand sanitizer, packs of tissues, toothbrushes, deodorant, and such and collected two large boxes full. These were donated to the food pantry at the Ecumenical Ministries in Fairhope.
WindHorse: Toy drive for charity. They collected gently used toys from all campers which were then donated to the Discovery Thrift Center.
WaveRider: Orchestrated a collaborative effort, in secret, to create a birthday card for the PotterTots Head of House for her birthday, which fell during camp. It was signed by every single camper and staff member, secretly, and presented to Madame Nelda of the Needles as a surprise during assembly on her birthday.