Harry Potter Fizzing Potions Lesson & More

Today we were continuing with our Harry Potter Unit and we had a lot of fun lessons planned.

The boys never know exactly what I have planned.  They knew we had a lot of fun Harry Potter themed activities, crafts, and lessons planned for the week but they weren't sure what we'd be doing each day.

I find that it keeps them excited and interested and they know that if an activity pops up that they don't like they don't have to participate.

Well, everyone wanted to participate today! Myself included (and I knew the "magic" behind it all!

Harry Potter Unit Fun:
We settled down to have some fun with Harry Potter.  I found a printable trivia game and gave each of the kids a score sheet.  We read through the questions and they wrote down their answers (with Evan whispering them to me).  We'd then go over the answers and they'd tally up their scores based on their correct answers-- so yeah, through game play we wrote, spelled, added, and covered reading comprehension too!

They had a ball and all did pretty well remembering the book The Chamber of Secrets.  Alec won, Evan came in second and Ian came in last; no big surprise because that is pretty much the order of interest too!

In Potions class today we made fizzing potions.

While they were working (or playing up in their rooms through the course of the morning), I filled small glass bowls with white vinegar, dish soap and food coloring.  They each received two glass bowls on a cookie sheet and then I placed two large containers of baking soda and some spoons on the table.  I told them we were making fizzing potions so they expected the potions to fizz but we weren't expecting them to fizz so much!

 The boys were in awe of this experiment and after playing around for awhile and trying to mix colors as well I asked them what they thought we were working with.  They all knew they were using baking soda and they could smell the dish soap but they weren't sure what else was making it fizz.  I asked them to think about what we always use with baking soda and then they all realized it was vinegar.

Thank goodness for the trays! 

We made some fun, magical, color changing drinks for lunch.

Again, while they were busy, I put a few drops of food coloring in the bottom of some red solo cups (I wanted something they could not possibly see through).  I had set them aside on the counter and they dried while we were doing school.  Right before I set them on the table I filled the cups up part way with ice and showed them the cup; see I have ice in my cup right?  Do you see anything else in the cup?  Now watch what happens as I pour some lemon lime soda in the cup.  What color is the soda?  What color is your drink?

They were mesmerized as the drinks turned red, purple and blue.  At first they all thought that perhaps it was the ice making the soda turn different colors but I reminded them that we add ice to our drinks all the time and that has never happened.  Finally one by one they accused me of adding something to the drink.  I told them what I did and how it worked.

We ate lunch and finished reading the chapter in Harry Potter that we had started over the weekend.

We left off where the wedding is interrupted and the ministry has fallen into Voldemort's controls.  I would have read more but the boys weren't all that into it today so we just read the half chapter and then found something else to do.  They did learn a lot about Dumbledore that the movies had not bothered to cover and all three boys guessed that Bathilda Bagshot is the lady that Harry and Hermione encounter in Godric's Hollow.

We made Galaxy Dough for Astronomy Class.

I had talked to the boys about either painting a galaxy today or making galaxy dough.  The boys settled on galaxy dough and so I attempted to make some.

We had no cream of tarter to follow the original recipe.  We tried to combine the colors and sparkle of galaxy dough with the easy molding material of our snow dough.  We combined paint and food coloring with the hand lotion and then added the baking soda until we got a nice play dough consistency.

We then added the glitter and we had a fun galaxy dough.  Ian wanted to play with the dough and once the other two saw that it started to stain his hands they chose not to play with it; not that I could blame them.  Luckily it all washed off of Ian's hands when he was done but I'm guessing the cooking makes all the difference between the color transferring or not. Oops!

All in all it was a really fun day!

Linking Up with: