First Day of School Blues

Everything was ready for an awesome family activity after the first day of school. The Conversation Snacks were packed.

The First Day Fizzy Pop was loaded.

I had printed off the QR Codes that I had written to get my kids talking. (See my blog post about this First Day of School Activity here.)

I even had a picnic dinner all ready to eat up the canyon. Some of us jumped into the Ford while the other half hoped into my daughter's new jeep and we headed out. We were enjoying the awesome summer weather as we stopped to fill up at a gas station.

It wasn't until my husband went to start the jeep after filling up that we had a problem. The jeep wouldn't start. This is the same jeep that has been in and out of the shop almost every day since my daughter bought it in June. Yikes! Some adult lessons are so painful and hard to learn when you are just 19 years old and still so innocent and full of hope that things like red jeeps are a dream come true.

While Dad popped the hood and tried to diagnose the problem, I took the kids over to the grassy strip of lawn on the side of the gas station. We did our First Day of School Activities right there. I am sure we must have been quite a sight.

All of us scanning QR codes and laughing as we loaded up snack bags and drank soda pop. Luckily, I had thrown in fake lips and mustaches which added to the fun! You never know when you will need a good mustache to save the day!

One hour and $200 later, the jeep was fixed. It was too late to head up the canyon but we headed home happy. It wasn't exactly what I had planned but still a memory was made. I am so glad that my extra preparation made a potentially bad situation bearable and helped my daughter and my other kids to face a  disappointing circumstance with a smile. Isn't that what Moms are for!

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Harry Potter Party: Potions Class

This is the 6th in a series of posts about our Harry Potter Birthday Party. You can read our other posts at the links below:

The Hogwarts Acceptance Letter
Invitation and Costumes
The Guests Arrive
Diagon Alley

The Sorting Hat Ceremony

After the party guests were sorted into houses, they went to their first class...Potions! Each student got out the goblet that they had purchased at Diagon Alley and gathered around the kitchen counter.
We had arranged all the potion ingredients earlier.

I added the dry ice in the cauldron at the last minute. We found the crow at the Dollar Store and attached him to the cauldron with hot glue.

Notice the chicken bones hanging from the light fixture! A nice touch from my teenagers!

Each party guest was able to choose from one of three potions:
A Beautification Potion
A Love Potion- Amortentia
Or A Luck Potion- Felix Felicis

We decided that we wanted our potions to actually taste good. So we used a list of Potion Ingredients from the Harry Potter books and attached an edible beverage or powder or solid to each ingredient.

For example:
Bat Spleen were actually Gushers! The recipe had the kids squish the liquid from the bat spleens into their potions! They loved that!

Stardew was actually honey. Here is the gorgeous container that my daughters put the honey into.

Our favorite ingredient was Pufferfish Eyes. I went to our local frozen yogurt store and bought Popping Bobas! Have you seen these before? You can add them as a topping to your frozen yogurt concoction. They come in different flavors. I got the mango flavored ones. They actually taste delicious but are perfectly slimy for a potion.

Each recipe included a liquid such as Sprite or Lemonade or Cranberry Juice with suitable potion names such as Mermaid Tears, Dragon's Blood, and Unicorn Blood.

Each recipe also included a solid. We used Pufferfish Eyes (Bobas), Baneberries (Blackberries) and Pond Slime (Smashed Kiwis)!

Each recipe also included a powder. We used Nightshade (dry Kool-Air Powder - the kind with the sugar already added), Exploding Ginger Eyelash (Pop Rocks), and Ground Mandrake Root (Crystal Light Powder).

We found our fun potions containers at Dollar Stores, Thrift Stores, and Hobby Lobby. We collected them a little bit at a time over the summer and had so much fun filling and arranging them before the party started.

Once each guest had chosen his or her potion, they began mixing them up according to the recipe instructions. We had some metal measuring spoons and cups that we set out for measuring out the ingredients.

You can find all of our recipes and the ingredient list here.

The kids had so much fun mixing their potions. They had even more fun drinking them! When it was time to go to the next class, most of the witches and wizards didn't want to leave. (Of course, Snape wasn't able to make it to our Potions class. That was probably why it was so fun for our students from Gryffindor and Ravenclaw.)


We had laminated the recipes and the party guests were able to add them to their bags to take home. After Potions was over, we moved on to our next class: Divination. Stay tuned for our post about Divination and our amazing Professor Trelawny next week!

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Harry Potter Party: The Great Hall and the Sorting Hat Ceremony

This is the 5th in a series of posts about our Harry Potter Birthday Party. You can read our other posts at the links below:

The Hogwarts Acceptance Letter
Invitation and Costumes
The Guests Arrive
Diagon Alley

Once the guests had purchased all their supplies in Diagon Alley, they were escorted into the Great Hall where they participated in the Sorting Hat Ceremony.

I found some great ideas for decorating my living room here.

The hanging candles were super easy and inexpensive to make. I just purchased battery-operated tea light candles and then wrapped white copy paper around them using double sided tape. Then I attached invisible fishing line to the candle flame and hung them with tacks from the ceiling. I had to use a letter opener to turn the light on when I was ready to hang them!

I made the banners that I hung above the fireplace with felt purchased at Hobby Lobby.

I bought all the tea light candles that I lit everywhere at a local dollar store.

I purchased the Sorting Hat from Amazon. I loved that the hat had a pocket inside to hold a walkie talkie.

Sorting Hat

My son Joseph was outside the house on the deck peeking in the window to see which guests were seated on the stool for sorting. He was holding the other half of the walkie talkie and he would dramatically announce the house for each guest. I think the magical sorting hat voice was my nephew Cameron's favorite part of the party. He kept asking how the sorting hat talked!

Joseph would give a brief list of the qualities of the student such as loyal, smart, brave etc. and then he would announce their house.

We had decided to  limit our houses to two: Gryffindor and Ravenclaw so that the two teams could compete against each other in Quidditch.

Once the party guest was sorted into his or her house, I would pin on their house ties.

I had made each guest a house tie with felt from Hobby Lobby. Each tie cost less than .50 cents to make. (I am starting to think that Hobby Lobby should sponsor my Harry Potter posts!!)

They made each guest look awesome with the house ties on top of the white shirts that we had asked them to wear.

This also helped us to tell the houses apart in our Quidditch game!

Once everyone had been sorted and dressed in their house ties, Dumbledore gave a brief first year speech: ( Nitwit, Blubber! Oddment! Tweak!) and then announced their first class.... Potions!! Stay tuned for our next post about the Potions class.

If you don't want to go to all the hoopla with the sorting hat, here is a fun sorting hat quiz that I created for our Hogwarts Summer Fun Challenge.

I think it would be fun to sort the guests using this sorting hat quiz.
The answer key is given below the quiz on the Google Drive document. Which house are you in?

Sorting Hat Quiz Pin It

First Day of School Conversation Snacks with QR Codes

Here is a fun activity to do with your kids on the first day of school.
First print out these tags and attach them to a cute bottle of pop and to a brown paper sack.

First Day of School Snack Tags

Leave the paper sack empty and let your child fill it as he or she answers the following questions:

1. Did you like your new teacher?
If Yes, add a handful of Skittles

If No, Add some sour skittles

2. Did you like your new class?

If Yes, add a handful of M&M's

If No, add a handful of raisins

3. Did you make a new friend?

If Yes, add a handful of peanuts

If No, Add a Handful of Cheerios Cereal

4. Did you like your lunch?

If Yes, add a handful of chocolate chips

If No, add a handful of pretzels

5. Did you do one assignment or project that you were proud of?

If Yes, add a handful of Smarties Candies

If No, add a handful of Airhead bites

Then your child can eat his or her snack mix and drink the soda pop as you talk about the first day of school. You can even pack up the treats and go to the park!

Here is what you will need to buy:
Skittles
Sour Skittles
M&M
Raisins
Cheerios Cereal
Peanuts
Pretzels
Chocolate Chips
Airhead Bites
Smarties

There are two ways you can do this activity.
#1. You can print out the first day of school questions with pictures. The pages look like the blog post above with questions and answers telling what they should add.

First Day of School Questions with Pictures

#2. Or you can print out these pages with QR Codes for the answers. I like the QR codes because when you use a smart phone to scan the Yes or No answers, you get a little compliment or pep talk along with the snack item. (Note: All you need to scan QR Codes with a smart phone or tablet is a QR Code Reader such as Qrafter Pro.)


First Day of School Questions with QR Codes

Here is an example of one of the messages that is included on a QR Code page:

No, you didn't do an assignment you are proud of today.
But tomorrow is your day to shine! Just try to do your best every day and that will make me proud!

Add this to your snack mix:

Sometimes it is discouraging as a Mom when we want to hear all about our child's day at school and all we get are answers like this: "It was okay." "Fine." "I don't know." "Nothing." "Sure." etc. etc.

I hope this activity will help you celebrate the first day of school and get a little bit more information out of your student! Enjoy!

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