Ollivander's

When the Brownies arrived at Pack Holiday, Ollivander had set up his wand shop, ready to find the perfect wand for each Brownie.

The Summer before the Pack Holiday, we spent several hours making 20 or so unique wands. We used this tutorial to make them:

http://www.pinterest.com/pin/2322237278534682/



We started with cheap chop-sticks and built each one up with glue from the glue-gun. We then painted them in a variety of designs.

We used citadel paints for the shiny and interesting colours and ordinary brown paint and wood stain for the wooden looking ones. 

We also added in beads and marbles to make some more interesting.

 It was a lot of fun making them -which was why we made more than we actually needed for pack holiday. This also meant the Brownies had plenty of choice when selecting a wand and no-one was left with the 'last one'.
If you were taking guides or rangers on holiday, you might consider letting them make their own wands. This would have been too challenging for our Brownies and we didn't want to risk them getting burns from the glue-gun. 

We measured each wand and gave them a label describing the wand's core, wood and length. We copied these from the actual wands described in the Harry Potter books.

Background potions and ingredients

I wanted the Potions lesson to really feel like a potions lesson and not just messing about with vinegar and bicarbonate of soda. I think the other potions and ingredients I made helped with this. I gave the Brownies an opportunity to look at all the different bottles and jars I'd filled by asking them to go and find the ingredients we needed for each potion. I found lists of potions and  ingredients in harry potter and made up a few of my own:

Boomslang skin is ladies' tights cut into squares
Sopophorous beans are just black  beans
Jobberknoll Feathers are just from a selection of  craft feathers - I picked out the pretty turquoise ones
Blood worms are just tinned spaghetti
Belladonna are black leaves from a present I received (a chocolate black rose)




I made these from lotions and creams that had been hanging around our bathroom. I cleaned out the one for the dragons blood and mixed green food with water inside. For the lobalug venom I just mixed green food colouring with the lotion already inside. The acromantula venom is made in the same way. The phoenix tears are just water and glitter.

Most of the premade potions were just made by mixing water with either paint or food colouring. Some of them looked more magical when we were creating them than the finished potion.

                                 Honey                 Coloured water and craft snow     water and gold paint

Wishing Potion

I wanted the last potion to be something the Brownies could take home as a keepsake from their potions lesson. I therefore came up with the idea of making a wishing potion. I got the idea to mix coloured water and oil from this blog. I also thought adding glitter would make them even more pretty.
Firstly we half-filled an empty herb-jar with bubotuber pus. (vegetable oil)
I then let them choose a colour:

And some glitter:

After filling their jar with their chosen coloured water and a couple of pinches of glitter, I taped the lids to the jars. I think this was the most tricky part and there were quite a few leaks and jars I had to retape. I think if I did this again I'd take the gluegun and glue the lids on.

I told them that each time they shook the jar they could make a wish but they couldn't make another wish until the contents had settled back down.

Hiccoughing solution

I wanted to make a potion that the Brownies could try but would also have some fun reactions too.

 I started off by colouring some sugar-free lemonade blue with food colouring. We called this lethe river water and I poured each Brownie about three quarters of glass.  The next ingredient we added was doxy eggs. For this we just used the little silver balls used for cake decorating.
Next we added a bezoar.  Now I was hoping this would cause the lemonade to fizz up as in the mentos and diet coke experiment. Unfortunately I had to buy a different lemonade than the one I'd practised with and this one didn't react with mento as much as I'd hoped when it was simply dropped in. However,  by my third group of Brownies I'd figured out that you could get it to fizz up by giving it a good stir.
Next we added syrup of hellebore  which was really just red food colouring and water. This made the potions a pretty purple colour. I love how 7-10 year olds are still fascinated by simple colour mixing. (Wow! Mine's turned purple!) Everyone's was a slightly different colour due to adding different amounts of red but this made them even more special.
The last ingredient we added was Ground graphorn horn  which was pretty fun trying to say. I had to get the Brownies to be quiet for this one because it was really popping candy. It was great to make a potion that fizzed and crackled. My only piece of advice when using popping candy is don't put it into a jar too far ahead of the lesson. I emptied 20 packets into a jar a week or so before the holiday and by the time we came to use it it was all stuck together.

Now check out the last potion: Wishing potion

Potions

The first lesson I knew we had to do was Potions. We researched a few other websites to see how other people have done potions. I got a lot of ideas from this website. This one is also pretty good for ideas for potions ingredients. Eventually I decided we'd make 3 potions: one just for fun, one they can drink and one as a keepsake.

Below are links to how we made each potion.

Herbicide potion
Hiccoughing solution
Wishing Potion

 I made potions books so the Brownies could easily follow the instructions. (and I didn't forget how to make them either)
I also made lots of different potions and potions ingredients to help create the atmosphere of a potions classroom.

Herbicide Potion

I wanted to start off the potions with a potion that really fizzes. I gave them each a jar and set of  ingredients because I thought it would be better than working in pairs. I named this potion Herbicide Potion to deter any of them from trying to drink it.  We started off by putting a little vinegar wormwood essence in a jar. To add some suspense I then got them to add various innocuous ingredients. I also got them to stir clockwise or anticlockwise after adding each ingredient.

billiwig sting = dried rosemary
rat claws = dried cloves
black beetle eyes = black peppercorns

After adding these ingredients and stirring we added the final ingredient, wartcap powder (bicarbonate of soda).

The reaction between the vinegar and baking soda makes awesome frothing bubbles which flowed over the sides of the jars. The Brownies absolutely loved this and we even got told off by another group as their shrieks and giggles were too loud.

The Brownies quickly realised that stirring made the ingredients react even more. 

Now check out the next potion: Hiccoughing solution