Harry Potter Camp: The Schedule

At my YALSA Symposium presentation I told attendees that I would make sure to put up all of my Harry Potter Camp materials on the blog. I'd been meaning to it anyway, so this is a perfect opportunity to get my butt in gear. Instead of just dumping everything, I thought it might be helpful to do a series of posts on the various activities and link to them on the Harry Potter Camp tab that I've added on the main page. On that page you can also find some background info. and logistics about my camp. 

Possibly the most daunting task in creating a 5-day camp was creating a schedule that packed in as much Pottertastic fun as possible and struck the right balance of activities to appeal to the different personalities that would undoubtedly be in attendance. From my daily experiences with middle school students I know that balancing loud and quiet, active and passive and thoughtful and silly is of utmost importance when trying to capture and hold their attention.

I agonized over how much time to spend on every activity and where it should fall in the schedule. Knowing that I would also likely be battling the heat and humidity, I tried to schedule outdoor activities before 11am. Wanting to keep (relatively) true to the order of events in both the books and a given year at Hogwarts, I also tried to sequence activities that would take us all the way from Sorting Ceremony to the Battle of Hogwarts.

The original schedule looked a bit different than what actually wound up happening, but I was prepared for that and had a "roll with the punches" mentality. Knowing that I had a whole week to hit the highlights gave me confidence that even if we ran out of time to do everything one day, we could push things to the next. I also made sure to plan more activities than could possibly ever fit into the schedule. Keeping a few extra activities in my back pocket "just in case" is one of my best teaching strategies. That way, if something flopped or took much less time than anticipated I wouldn't be scrambling to figure out a way to keep everyone occupied. Extra activities and YouTube.

I tried my best to update the schedule below to reflect what actually played out. The kids turned out to be insanely obsessed with Dueling (they are still doing it at recess sometimes, and even kids who didn't come to camp are joining in), and not so into Transfiguration (which you'll note doesn't even appear on the schedule, because as I described the activity and saw their disinterest I quickly pivoted and said "Dueling?" to which they responded with cheers and shouts of joy).

	Monday	Tuesday	Wednesday	Thursday	Friday
9:00	Sorting Ceremony	"Class" Picture Day	Capture the Egg  (Tri-Wizard Tourn.)	Chocolate Frogs: Boxes & Cards	Playful Potions
9:30	Quidditch	Quidditch	Pool  (Tri-Wizard Tourn.)	Quidditch	Quidditch
10:00	Quidditch	Quidditch	Pool  (Tri-Wizard Tourn.)	Quidditch	Quidditch
10:30	Ollivander's (wand making)	Scribbulus's (quill making)	Pool  (Tri-Wizard Tourn.)	Chocolate Frogs Peppermint Toads Cockroach Clusters	Cauldron Cakes
11:00	Acid Pops Licorice Wands	Bertie Bott's Taste Test	Pool (Tri-Wizard Tournament)	Chocolate Frogs Peppermint Toads Cockroach Clusters	Butterbeer Pumpkin Juice
11:30	Lunch	Lunch	Pool (Tri-Wizard Tournament)	Lunch	Feast
12:00	Dueling	Dueling	Pool (Tri-Wizard Tournament)	Legilimency	Dueling
12:30	Dueling	Dueling	Lunch	HP Alliance Speaker	Horcrux Scavenger Hunt
1:00	Sorcerer's Stone Challenge	Drinkable Potions	Minute-To-Win-Its (Tri-Wizard Tournament)	HP Alliance Speaker	Horcrux Scavenger Hunt
1:30	Sorcerer's Stone Challenge	Drinkable Potions	Minute-To-Win-Its (Tri-Wizard Tournament)	HP Alliance Speaker	Battle of Hogwarts
2:00	OWL Exams (Trivia)	OWL Exams (Trivia)	OWL Exams (Trivia)	OWL Exams (Trivia)	Battle of Hogwarts
2:30	OWL Exams (Trivia)	OWL Exams (Trivia)	OWL Exams (Trivia)	OWL Exams (Trivia)	Closing/Diplomas

Not on the schedule but definitely also utilized were YouTube videos and other fun Harry Potter things on the web. Check out my Harry Potter Camp Padlet with links to everything. These little distractions were great to use when we had just a few minutes to fill and not a whole chunk of time.

But what good is this silly schedule if I'm not giving you all the details on what we did? No good at all, I say! Stay tuned. Details are coming...

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