Calling all Potter fans!Unlock family fun in lockdown with a simple “Alohomora” and JK Rowling’s brand-new ‘Harry Potter At Home’ hub. Whether you’re a muggle or wizard, this free online space is designed to help you and your little ones discover the magic of Harry Potter from the comfort of your very own home.With everything from celebrity readings, videos, puzzles, illustrations, quizzes, creative ideas, articles and so much more magical fun being added daily, this platform is bound to keep both young and older wizards occupied for hours on end - you’ll truly be kept under the spell! Whether you’re a huge fan of the books, watched the movies over and over again or have never so much as heard of Hogwarts, there’s something for everyone to get stuck into and make the most of. To help you out we’ve listed some of our favourite Harry Potter activities to get started - don’t forget your wands!1. Get sorted into your Hogwarts HouseAre you a Gryffindor, Ravenclaw, Hufflepuff or Slytherin? Settle any confusion and find out for sure when you get sorted into your Hogwarts House online! Despite not being a new feature, one can hardly make the most of the magical hub without knowing which house they belong to so we recommend starting your journey here. It’s super simple and takes less than five minutes - all you have to do is answer a range of questions about potential situations that are likely to happen in the world of Harry Potter and reveal a little about your wizarding personality; after that, it’s all up to the sorting hat. And everyone knows, the sorting hat is always right! After you’ve been sorted into your house, why not embrace your house colours by creating some Harry Potter inspired uniform? Perhaps you could make and colour in ties according to your house using paper and colouring in pens!2. A magical guide on how to draw a NifflerQuills at the ready! This isn’t your ordinary arts and crafts session, it’s got a magical twist! First introduced to us in the fourth book - The Goblet of Fire - this cheeky creature, best known for being on the lookout for shiny objects and being a particular favourite of Newt Scamander, is super easy to draw and is utterly adorable. This two-minute video guide breaks the Niffler down into super simple steps that are easy to follow along to so you needn’t worry about having any artistic prowess. Plus, you can pause and rewind the video to your heart’s content so you don’t have to worry about missing anything. Don’t forget to draw this little fellow’s shiny, gold coins otherwise you might be left with one grumpy Niffler! And if one tutorial simply isn’t enough to satisfy your artistic cravings, fly over to the Wizarding World Youtube channel where you’ll be greeted by loads more Harry Potter activities and arts and crafts videos.3. Take part in the interactive quizzes and gamesDo you have the brains of Hermione Granger? How much can you and your family remember about the first Harry Potter book - Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone? Take the quiz to find out and see how many you can get right! And if you’ve never read any of the books before, the quiz is a great incentive to start! As well as quizzes, there’s a few super cool, interactive, online word searches - can you complete it faster than the speed of the golden snitch? Challenge your friends and family to have a go and compare times! Not to mention the crosswords where you’ll get the chance to channel your inner Hermione again. Our top tip? Expect some magical twists along the way and be prepared for anything to happen…4. Make the most of the educational resourcesHarry Potter books are so addictive and exciting to read that getting stuck on a word can be really annoying! Plus, a lot of the words in Harry Potter mean nothing to mere muggles and you won’t even find them in the dictionary. For example, Quidditch and remembrall! Thankfully, there’s some great resources on the hub, including ‘Ten words you need to know when reading the first Harry Potter book’, so you and your little ones will be able to breeze through the books in no time. There’s even a page where you can get to know Harry, Ron and Hermione a little better. Plus, if you’re looking for an extended glossary of the wizarding words, head to the Harry Potter glossary on the Bloomsbury website - it’s got everything from spells to wizarding nouns!5. Check out the guide for first time readers!Maybe you’ve just received your Hogwarts acceptance letter and you’ve finally made the brave decision to embark on reading the Harry Potter books? There’s an incredible guide to reading the books for the first time on the hub and it covers everything from what to expect, who you’ll meet along the way and even that the books will magically get bigger as you make your way through them! Our favourite piece of advice is that it’s a marathon, not a sprint. With over half a dozen books in the collection, all ranging in length and content, there’s a lot of magic to get through and it’s important not to rush through it! There’s no need to be the fastest reader in the world, in fact, it’s best to read Harry Potter at a slower pace so as to absorb every little detail - any Harry Potter fans will tell you that!6. The first Harry Potter audiobook for free for everyone!Alongside the launch of this magical new hub, you’re invited to listen to the first Harry Potter book, Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone for free as many times as you like in the coming weeks thanks to Audible! It will be available to listen to for free in six different languages - English, Spanish, French, Italian, German and Japanese - unfortunately no Parseltongue! Being read by the wonderful Stephen Fry, as opposed to the equally great Jim Dale, who voiced the American version, for some it’s a chance to hear it being read by an entirely new voice - and we can confirm, Stephen makes a brilliant Voldemort! Plus, with everything that is going on in the world at the moment, this audiobook couldn’t have come at a better time. Plug in your speakers, turn off the lights and get ready to be transported to the incredible wizarding world of Harry Potter!7. Go on an adventure with a celebrityFancy indulging in story time with a famous face? Well, now you can. Daniel Radcliffe, Noma Dumezweni, Eddie Redmayne, David Beckham, Stephen Fry and many more are lined up to read different parts of the first Harry Potter novel online. You can watch the videos here - but we’ve also got a cheeky teaser for you to enjoy below, too.
Calling all Potter fans!
