Information About Amusements

By Author: FIRELEAVES
Total Articles: 49
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As part of the entertainment at the celebration, trivia contests are fun, and you can find dozens, if not hundreds, of ready-made quizzes online. However, I suggest having students create their own. A system that has worked for me is to have each student write three trivia questions: one on general knowledge, one specifically related to their house, and one specifically related to another house. Each question has to include the answer and cite the book and page where they found the information. These questions are given to the prefects, who choose the three best from each category. Then I take these 36 questions and create a. Jeopardy-like game, basing the point values on the difficulty of the questions.

Another good party activity is creating wands. I ordered materials from Oriental Trading Company including 24 chopsticks for under $5.00 and 24 trophies for under $15.00. The trophies come with labels that can be printed and then attached before they are awarded to prize winners. I also searched through Men's Shoes my cupboards and at the local dollar store for strong glue ...
... and glitter, ribbons, feathers, scraps of leather, beads, and pom-poms. During the party, students select from the supply table and create unique wands, which years later they tell me they still have. Once the wands are created, and the house members' work together to create new charms and spells. All spells have to use appropriate Latin roots and must be accompanied by wand movements. As each house takes turns teaching their new spells to the rest of the class, judges decide on the points. Winners in one class included the following:
Lostis Returnus: A charm to find something you lost.
Kissamous Amore: A love charm Lipporiddius: A charm to lose weight
Distortio: A charm to change the shape of something

Another activity that works well, if started a couple of weeks in advance, is for each house to create a "Wizarding Wonder"—a new product to be marketed to wizards—and an accompanying advertising campaign, such as a magazine ad or a media spot. At the party each house presents its product and advertisement. With the easy availability of today's digital media and the willingness of teens to get in front of a camera, this has been one of the most memorable parts of our Harry Pot ter days. The product I remember the best is the Luftreise, which was advertised as "A Better Quid-ditch Broom" because of its German engineering and which provides a seat more like a bicycle, plus optional handlebars. In Arizona, one group invented a Geriatric Gobbler, a giant turkey that eats snowbirds (the retired people who arrive each fall to spend Designer Shoes their winters in our favorable climate). Another group invented a Swiffoffator, a new broom that is an improvement
over the Swiffer products currently being advertised. It is such a precision instrument that it can pick up owl dander.

The following are a few other ideas that also work well, but you won't have time to do all of them, especially if you are trying to squeeze the whole event into a typical class period. Maybe you can combine classes or join forces with another teacher so that students can travel from one house to another choosing the activities they would most enjoy.