My son is now years out of high school and college, but we all still talk about his obsession with Harry Potter! It was YEARS, many many years that he read and reread the books. He even went to bed every night listening to the audio books. As an adult he has collected all the illustrated versions that have come out. He would have lived for his homeschooling to include all things Harry Potter.

{I received the Waldock’s Wizards and Wands year long unit study a as part of this review and I was compensated for my time in writing it. All views are my own and I was not required to write a positive review. Please see my full Disclosure Policy for more details.}

Now his girlfriend is currently reading through them and talking about them with him. It’s a fun thing for them to share together! This all spurred our 9 year old grandson to be interested in Harry Potter. So when I suggested to my daughter that she use the Wizards and Wands interest-led unit study from The Waldock Way, she was all in.

About Wizards and Wands

Waldock’s Wizards and Wands is a year long study in which students read the Harry Potter books, watch the movies, and study courses such as Alchemy, Astronomy, Charms, Enchantments, Herbology, Incantations, Magical Creatures, Muggle Studies, Potions, and Spells. Each of these subjects includes a Required Book. Some of these we purchased, and some we borrowed from the library to help keep the cost down. The study includes every subject but math, which you choose whatever program you wish to add to your homeschool days. We use Teaching Textbooks so that is what we added in to each day for math.

The Teacher’s Manual

The Wizards and Wands Teacher’s Manual is full of links to all kinds of resources to add to your study. Everything from Required Resources to Suggested Books, games, activities, fun websites and more! {Sidenote: As with anything that links to other sites, not all links were valid anymore. When this happens I tend to try and search the linked-to site if it’s still up as sometimes they change their links. If the site is no longer up I do a Google search for something similar.} I chose to print and spiral bind the Teacher’s Manual because we like physical print planners. This allows us to customize it for our needs. However we used the digital version for all the links to purchase books and supplies and will keep it handy to reference things like the YouTube Playlists, Pinterest Boards, etc.

Lesson Planning

There is a Lesson Plan sheet within the Teacher’s Manual. For planning purposes we (my daughter and I as we planned for this year long interest-led unit study) printed out 36 Lesson Plan sheets and got to work.

As you can see in the photo I still love my color coding for planners. You can also see this in action in some of the planners I have created for my own kids throughout our homeschooling years: The Easy Printable Elementary Homeschool Planner, the Simple Homeschool Middle School Planner, and the Weekly Assignments Printable Checklist Style Planner.

We started by coloring coding each of the core courses:

1. Charms, Spells, Enchantments and Incantations (English) this includes copy work, dictation, narration, and writing projects and is done every day, every week throughout the year. We are also adding in Growing with Grammar for the extra grammar practice he needs.
2. Alchemy (rocks & minerals) This is a 6 week study.
3. Astronomy (stars, constellations, and phases of the moon) This is a 6 week study.
4. Herbology (Botany) This is a 6 week study (but we actually cut it down by a few to make more time for the Muggle Studies).
5. Magical Creatures (learning about magical creatures their characteristics, diet, and habitats) This is a 6 week study.
6. Muggle Studies (History) including Knights & Castles, Viking raiders, Rome & Romans, Pharaohs & Pyramids. This is an 8 week study.
7. Potions (Chemistry) This is a 6 week study.

Then we laid out the school week dates and weeks each course would be studied.

We went through a 2023/2024 calendar to decide what dates we would be schooling. Leaving out time for breaks and holidays. Then we wrote in what course of study we would be doing each week. Every one is 6 weeks except for Muggle Studies. We planned Herbology so it would be in nicer weather to account for growing plants. It felt like more of a spring-like activity than a dreary winter one.

As we did this my daughter went through the resource links for each study and we decided what activities they would do for each subject. Crossing out what we weren’t using boxing in what we were using, and writing in anything additional we may have found.

Making a plan for reading the books

Once we had our whole school year planned out in weeks, we decided to add in a book reading schedule. While it doesn’t have to remain hard and fast, it will help her to know how close they are to being on track for reading all of them this year. We planned 3 days a week for doing the chapter reading. The reading gets done anytime throughout the week though, using a combination of physical reading as well as listening to the audiobooks. Adding in the audiobooks has made it easier for them to get their reading in. They listen at lunch and on the go in the car, and then physically read at night or during snuggly afternoons.

Waldock’s Wizards and Wands Student Book

The Wizards and Wands Student Book contains all the pages you need to complete this year long interest-led unit study. We printed it and had it spiral bound for ease of us.

It includes things like:

• a page a week of dictation
• a writing activity a week
• a page a week for each one of the other core subjects

It makes it easy to just follow along, doing the next narration or writing assignment, the next workbook sheet for Alchemy, etc. It keeps everything in one place!

How Much Do We Love the Harry Potter Unit Study?

A WHOLE LOT! It is like a dream come true for a kid to be able to immerse themself in such a wonderful, fun world. For a kid who cringes at anything that feels “schooly” my grandson is loving reading/listening to the books, planning out the “potions” he’s going to make, and having movie night to watch the movie once he has finished each book!

Special Back to School Offer!

Take 30% OFF your entire purchase at The Waldock Way with coupon code: WALDOCK2023

Valid Through August 31st, 2023