The One With The Harry Potter Party

Occasionally I can be very stubborn.  There are a few things in life I refuse to do just to go against the grain.  Reading and watching anything Harry Potter related was one of those things until this school year.

I never really had a reason to not read the books or watch the movies.  I simply didn't want to.  This year I have G in my class. G is a big HP fan and immediately started trying to convince me that I needed to read the books.  I figured since I was challenging my students to step out of their comfort zone when it comes to genres, I probably should too.

I gave in and checked out the first book.  I read it.  I liked it.  I liked it a lot.

I've since read the second one and am planning to read number three soon.  When I received an email from scholastic saying J.K.Rowling was doing a webcast for students my interest was peeked.

It turns out it is this Thursday during my Pre AP English class, which G happens to be in.  Perfect.  I got in touch with our technology person and it looks like we should be able to do this.

The party planning began.  Any excuse for fun snacks.  I went to Pinterest of course and found several cute ideas.

I will be serving these Nimbus 2000s

Along with Bertie Botts Every Flavor Beans (thanks to my brother).

We will also have the much needed wands.

Cauldron cakes & petit fours are a must simply because they are so yummy.  I'll post a picture of these soon.



To drink we will be having a special potion that changes colors when poured.  The color will determine your house since the Sorting Hat only works in Hogwarts.

My kids and I are super pumped about this.  I love a good party.

The One That Failed

I don't know about you, but I think posts with pictures are so much better than posts without.  That is my excuse for not posting in awhile.  I get so busy during the day that I simply forget to take pictures.  Does that happen to anyone else?

A lack of pictures keeps me from posting what is happening in my classroom.  Toady I decided to just post anyway.

I did a lab Monday that did not quite go as planned.  Please tell me that has happened to you.  The frustrating part is that it is a lab that I've done for several years and have done successfully for several years.

The question we were testing was "Which brand of dishwasher soap makes the biggest bubbles?" as we practiced collecting data to make bar graphs.

You can find this lab here. I think I've done this lab every year for the past six years.  It has worked beautifully every year.  Students love blowing huge bubbles.  They forget they are learning.

This year it was an absolute flop.  We couldn't get any decent bubbles going.  It was awful.  The students still had fun "playing" and we talked about what should have been.  We were still able to answer some of the questions and talk about the bar graph.  It just wasn't quite as fun.

I was so frustrated.  I have no idea what went wrong this year.