Harry Potter Notebooking - Happy Birthday JK Rowling!
Sunday, July 1, 2012 at 2:33PM 
It's so exciting to be able to write about JK Rowling. You know, her birthday is July 31, and if you visit the iHomeschool Network you will see all kinds of birthday lessons for the month of July. It might be fun to go through these lessons with your children for some "summer schooling".
I have JK Rowling to thank for my daughter's love of reading. No matter your thoughts about the Harry Potter series, JK Rowling has inspired a GENERATION of children to read.
My children and I have worked quite hard to bring you a Harry and Friends Notebooking Pages download. Stick around until the end of the post for the link!
Let's kick off JK Rowling's birthday lesson with a little music, shall we? Here's Miss B playing "Hedwig's Theme" composed by John Williams.
About JK Rowling
I just write what I wanted to write. I write what amuses me. It's totally for myself.
~ JK Rowling
JK Rowling was born July 31, 1965. In short, she took a long road before she finished Harry Potter and The Philosopher's Stone in 1996. In fact, the publisher payed her a meager sum ($3,000) for the book, and encouraged her to use her initals instead of her first name so the book would appeal to male readers. I love this online biography of Rowling.
Today, JK Rowling is richer than the Queen of England, and continues to write. What an inspiration she is to young authors everywhere... an idea that was born on a train ride turns out to be a wildly successful series of books for ALL AGES.
Rowling Biographies for Children
Scholastic's Conversations With JK Rowling is a great resource. Miss B loved this book.
Who is JK Rowling? will also be released later this summer. We are fans of the "Who Was?" series and have already pre-ordered the Rowling book.
Additional Resources
We have been reading Harry Potter and The Sorcerer's Stone aloud... discussing as we go. I want to recommend The Unofficial Harry Potter Vocabulary Builder. This book contains words from all of the books in the series, with definitions, parts of speech, and origins. As we read through the rest of the series, these will become supplemental spelling words for my children.
For more ideas and information about JK Rowling and teaching with Harry Potter you can visit my Harry Potter/JK Rowling Pinterest page. I'm continuing to pin as we delve more into the magical world of Harry Potter.
Harry and Friends Notebooking Pages
Whenever we approach a new study in our homeschool, I like to see if there are notebooking pages available. I had a hard time finding specific Harry Potter pages that fit our needs, so we set about creating them.
Harry and Friends Notebooking Pages was created specifically for my children. I never wanted to immerse myself in the world of Harry Potter. I had tried to read the first book when it first came out, and I have to admit I DID NOT LIKE IT.
My daughter became enthralled with Harry as she was leaving the public schools. In her first few months at home she read (and re-read) all of the books. She still reads them today. I think that loving Harry so much helped ease her transition from school to home.
Now that my son is nearly eight she wanted me to read them aloud to him. I agreed, thinking "maybe I'll give Harry Potter another chance."
I am so very glad I did. The sense of imagination, suspense, drama, and overall fantasy have captivated me. I'm so happy to share in this world with my children now.
Please enjoy these in your homeschool. If you use them and mention them in a post, I ask that you please link back to me. These pages (while a labor of love) took much time and effort.
Be sure to visit the iHomeschool Network to see the other Birthday Lessons for July!
Reader Comments (13)
This is fantastic Mary! Plus, I love all of the resources you linked to in this post about J.K. Rowling...thank you :)
Mary, this is fabulous! We so enjoyed listening to Miss B's music, beautiful! I can tell you spent a lot of time on the notebooking pages, too. They are awesome! I have the first Harry Potter book. Marty bought it years ago to read...he didn't like it, either...never finished it. We will dust if off the bookshelf and enjoy using the notebooking pages you made in the near future. Thanks!!
I just picked up the first book from the library last week to see what all the hoopla was about before I let my daughter read them. This weekend, I picked it up when the internet was out and I almost finished it in one sitting. She's a fantastic writer!!
Well we love HP around here. I LOVE all these great ideas Mary. Thank you so much for the notebooking pages. They are awesome!
Mary, I love this! We are big HP fans in our house. I've been reading the series aloud to my 8 yr. old son, it has taken us many months but we are on the last book. Pinned this to my HP Obsession pin board. :-) Thanks for all the info on JK Rowling. Will check out those links.
This is awesome, we have done a few vocab/comprehension questions booklets that I found on curriclick but they were a little old for my 8 year old. These are perfect. Thanks!
These are wonderful! Thanks for sharing.
great job, mary! although, i've had hesitation in harry, i think it's sparked a love of reading in my youngest. the key to reading is simply finding the right book, yes? ;)
Love this so much! Thank you for sharing.
My daughter and I are reading this book now (each individually) and discussing as we go. I just printed these off and will definitely use them! They look great! Thank you for sharing!
My eight year old daughter loved the movies and is really interested in reading the books. Thanks for the pages to get us started.
We had a long talk about witchcraft and being a Christian before I let her watch these movies. I don't think it is a huge deal. My daughter knows the difference between real and fantasy. Even as a Christian, didn't we all want to have magical powers? I think much more has been made that needs to be. Relax and enjoy the books.
Have a wonderful day.
Wow big hugs for you! This post is awesome! I CANNOT wait to start this series next year with my oldest.
As a homeschooling Christian mother, I am wondering why you are choosing to post things about Harry Potter. The Bible tells us to steer clear of such things as magic.
"Now the works of the flesh are manifest, which are these; Adultery, fornication, uncleanness, lasciviousness, Idolatry, WITCHCRAFT, hatred, variance, emulations, wrath, strife, seditions, heresies, Envyings, murders, drunkenness, revellings, and such like: of the which I tell you before, as I have also told you in time past, that they which do such things shall not inherit the kingdom of God. " Galatians 5:19,20
*They that do these things will not inherit the kingdom of God. It doesn't get much clearer than that.
"For rebellion is as the SIN OF WITCHCRAFT, and stubbornness is as iniquity and idolatry. Because thou hast rejected the word of the LORD, he hath also rejected thee from being king." 1 Samuel 15:23
*Yep, witchcraft is a sin.
Just because you might not be actively practising witchcraft, it doesn't mean that it is all harmless fun. It is dangerous, it is evil and Christians shouldn't want any part of it.
There are plenty of other ways to encourage children to read, and using that as a reason for allowing your child to read it probably won't wash with God when we have to stand in front of Him and explain ourselves.
Aside from those obvious things, there are also the hidden things that people don't consider. By allowing your children to read the books, and watch the movies, parents are "normalising" witchcraft and will think that it is normal and ok.
What's to say that something more sinister won't grab their attention when they are older and lead them off the path, all because they read it as a child and believed that it was 'ok' because their parents said it was ok?!
As one mother to another, and a former (repentant) dabbler of witchcraft myself, please hear my plea.
Please, please pray about this and repent.