And the Deathly Hallows

The last day of our Harry Potter Week: Deathly Hallows Day! I kind of can't believe how well this whole week went, and despite a few tweaks, I really wouldn't change much if I were to do it again. 

Theme Weeks are great. The boys love them and they really break up book work, and keep home school exciting for them. While it wasn't an entirely educational week, they learned a lot- and had tons of fun, and will be refreshed when they pull out the books again next week. Out of all the theme weeks though, this one has to rank as the best. And it might even be one of those childhood memories my kids one day speak fondly of, and that's really why I do all this (because putting this all together was A LOT of work), but for me, almost anything is worth the cost of fond childhood memories. 

My house my be messy after this week, I might be exhausted- but my kids are happy, and they can file it away as another awesome experience. 

Plus, while many of you may be familiar with Harry Potter because of the movies, in this house we read books before we watch movies (and they're always better!) The fact that this week my kids were SO excited about comes from books... well, that just makes it all the more awesome. 

(Peyton got Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them for Christmas, and he's been reading those along with re-reading Harry Potter. Nobody loves reading more than him) 

The books tell not only an entertaining story, but they have lots of inspiration and lessons in them too. Our quote today "Do not pity the dead, Harry, pity the living and above all those who live without love"

Owl mail was pretty awesome today. If you don't know, the Deathly Hallows consist of three items: the invisibility cloak, the resurrection stone, and the elder wand. They belonged to three brothers. 

The oldest brother had the elder wand. So, along with Calib's owl mail, that's exactly what he got. You might remember long ago Hayden decided the top of the toilet brush cleaner was actually the elder wand in disguise.. well, that's still a thing in my house (we had to get a new toilet brush). Calib knew exactly what it was as soon as he saw it. Everyone in this house knows the 'elder wand' when they see it. 

The youngest brother has the invisibility cloak, so it obviously came in Hayden's owl mail today. He put it on several times today, and we'd all pretend we couldn't see him. 

The middle brother had the resurrection stone, so it came with Peyton's owl. (Fun side note, Peyton asked me if owl mail could continue to be delivered every once in awhile, because he really liked it. I might have to send him something every once in awhile-- they will have one more fun surprise in owl mail tomorrow, a Hogwarts Diploma!) 

We did have five lessons today, but most of them were wrapping up things we had been working on. I figured seventh years could handle it. 

For Astronomy the boys took all the worksheets they'd been working on for their planets and put them together into their lap books. Calib even noted this was his favorite part of the day (that was at dinner though, I think it might have been different if I asked him now) 

We checked on our Mandrakes. Hayden had a sprout! He had to cover his ears so he could water them without hearing the baby mandrake screams. 

And we checked on our flowers. Fun (or not so fun) sidenote: Maybel decided it'd be fun to do her usual 'dip my paw in the water and then drink it' thing she does out of any cup of water. Except, these had food coloring in them, so I had fun green paw prints on my table and my carpet. Good times. 

We'll keep watching these, but the green and blue turned out way better than the orange and red. 

It was then on to Divination. Our prophecies had dried, and it was time to age them. We crinkled them up, and then set the edges on fire. 

We've hung them up in the laundry room, and we'll wait to see if they come true. 

For our final Transfiguration class we checked on our egg in vinegar, which turned really strangely. We ended up popping the egg and we were left with a weird mush shell (totally intact except for the hole the yolk came through) No pictures of that one though. 

Next up the boys 'transformed' into Harry Potter characters and had to guess who they were. We brought out the bands from our Headbanz game and I wrote characters on index cards. They had five questions they could ask per round instead of using the timer. I didn't play along since I had written the characters and knew who was in there, but Asa got in on it. (He was none too happy when he was Tom Riddle, he had a really hard time with that one-- mostly I think because Peyton was Voldemort at the same time. ) 

We had to take a break from our classes, because Hayden had kid crafts at the library. We missed them in November (because of the Peyton Manning trip), and December (because of our Ohio trip), so I didn't want to miss them again, even if it had to pause the last day of Harry Potter Week. 

It worked out well with our lessons though, because the theme was "starry night" and he got to make the solar system. He's getting so good at them tonight during the pop quiz he named them all in order closest to the sun to farthest away. And he was telling kids around him all about the planets and how they should color them. 

He also made some marshmallow constellations and some chalk drawings. I sprung for the 64 cent slushie during happy hour for him on the way home. 

After a quick trip to the store for some dinner supplies, we were back at it with our very last class: Potions. 

We finally pulled our crystals out and attached them to some rings so we could hang them up. (You'll find out in a second why Calib is covering his nose and mouth) 

I did end up with a lot of crystals on the bottom of my jars too, so that was a downside of the project, but they did turn out really cool. 

Our last potions project in our book was a two-day project. Yesterday we boiled some dried basilisk venom (red cabbage), and kept the water. 

We had a discussion about the pH scale, bases and acids. Then it was time to mix the cabbage water with vinegar. 

Mixing the water with an acid (like vinegar) turned the cabbage water a brighter purple, almost red color (and also apparently smelled TERRIBLE. This anosmic mom didn't mind, but just keep that note in case you want to try this project yourself) 

Mixing the water with baking soda (a base) turned the cabbage water blue. After the boys saw that, they tried out all kinds of different things (lemon juice, salt, dish soap- and all kinds of different combinations) to see what color they could get the water to turn. 

After they had completed all their classes, we moved on to the first of our activities. 

I probably could have made a whole pattern, but we just free handed it (with an exception of a cup for the circle)-- and made the deathly hallows symbol with bleach pens on some black shirts. 

Hayden wanted to add a little more, and I told him he could do whatever he wanted. 

We let them sit for awhile, and then rinsed them before throwing them in the dryer. They turned out pretty cool for winging it. 

Asa made Kreacther's french onion soup, and Chiddingly Hotpot

After dinner we were on to our final activity, the boys had gotten a letter in their owl mail about the horcrux scavenger hunt they would be completing later that night. 

The first horcrux was the Slytherin's locket. To retrieve it the boys had to cross the lake (the grass), and get to the island (a hula hoop in the middle of the yard), by using stones to step on (four paper plates which they had to move to make it to the other side of the yard) 

Once out there, they had to retrieve the locket from the lake (the bucket)...

...With the fishing pole. 

Success! 

They headed back the same way they came...

And were given their next clue. 

This clue told them to use the Harry Potter books and find the first letter on each of the pages listed. Then they had to unscramble the letters to figure out what room the next horcrux was located in. 

 So they looked through the books... 

And came up with the living room. Tom Riddle's diary was hidden under the couch cushion. 

Once the found it, they read their next clue. 

They had a puzzle to put together in the envelope. It was a picture of the location of their next horcrux: Marvolo Gaunt's ring

They worked hard to get the puzzle put together. 

And it revealed a close up picture of the ring, so off they went to find it. 

It was in our room on the bookshelf, 

and it didn't take Peyton too long to find it. 

He read the next clue. Basically, they had to use different clues like the number of weasley's to come up with some numbers. The numbers spelled out our address. 

Once Calib realized this, he sprinted to the mailbox. 

Sure enough, there was Hufflepuffs cup. 

The next clue was printed as a mirror image, so they were told to go to the place where the "Chamber of Secrets" was written (the bathroom mirror) to read it. 

The poem was written normally and easy to read once you got it to a mirror. But, they had to unscramble the worlds to figure out what it said ("Ravenclaw's Diadem is under your bathroom sink") 

Once they found it, they were given the clue to the last horcrux they would be finding- Nagini, the snake. This snake however, speaks in rare German parsletounge, so they had to use a translator to get their next clue. 

To google they went! 

This one was hilarious to watch. Around 3 o'clock, I hid the snake in Calib's room knowing he doesn't get in his bed during the day. But, when I hid the rest of them and put everything together after dinner, I made them go to their rooms. Calib kept telling everyone it wasn't in their rooms because of that, until finally I couldn't help but laugh at him. 

Now that they were all collected, they had to be destroyed. Along with their letters in owl mail, they were given a recipe to make basilisk venom to destroy the cup and the diary. 

All you need is some troll tears (water), powdered basilisk venom (baking soda), and foul-smelling smoodge (vinegar). I also dropped a few drops of blue food coloring (I would have done green if I had it) in the bottom of the cauldron (a Halloween bucket) so it would turn colors. 

The mixed it according to the directions. 

And then used it to destroy the diary and cup. 

They needed the sword of Gryffindor to destroy the locket, ring, and snake. To obtain it though, they had to quietly sneak up on Asa (who had his eyes closed). If he heard a noise, he'd pull it away and they had to sit back down and try again. Peyton was successful. 

And the sword was used to destroy all but one remaining horcrux. 

All that was left was Ravenclaw's Diadem, but that would have to be burned. (Why boy doesn't like watching things burn?) 

After a pop quiz, house points were counted, and Peyton won, one last time. 

Gryffindor back on top. 

But everyone felt bad Hayden had never gotten it, and decided to give it to him instead. (Calib and Peyton can be pretty nice big brothers sometimes!) 

I rewarded everyone with one last butterbeer. Hayden wanted to drink out of Hufflepuffs cup, so I happily obliged. 

And that's it. Harry Potter week is over, I can relax and start planning our next big adventure (and some more presidents birthdays, I haven't even finished with the two we have to celebrate later this month!) I hope you all had fun reading about our week. If anyone wants any of my pdf's or anything let me know, I'm happy to pass them along. 

Next Up: Championship Sunday, and State of the Union Bingo. I'll see you in a few days. I need some time off from blogging (Once per night is a lot!)