Why you HAVE to teach with Harry Potter

***Update: I have pictures from two different years in this post. I did it last year when I taught 5th (at my old school) and again this year when I taught 6th (at my current school). Both times were magical :). The top is about 5th grade and if you scroll to the bottom you will see the 6th grade version of everything.

Harry Potter PART I

I have dreamed of doing a Harry Potter thematic unit with my class, pretty much ever since I knew I wanted to be a teacher.

I know some of you still have your doubts, but I have seen first hand the power of reading Harry Potter as a class. Read the post, and at the bottom I have lots of pictures and ideas of how to make this the best thing you will ever do in your whole entire life. Serious.

These are the things stopping you and why you should ignore them.

1.) Students say they don’t like Harry Potter and/or they don’t want to read it.

Obviously I am biased (I want to be Hermoine), but when people (whether kids or adults) tell me they don’t like Harry Potter, I pretty much just call them liars, and move on with my life. I’m sorry, but if you actually make it all the way through all 7 books, you don’t hate it. It is impossible. Or you’re lying…. #sorrynotsorry

Many of my students complained when they heard we were going to read Harry Potter. Many of them said they “hated” it. I started to doubt my choice, but I had two students who I knew had read the books, and they were ecstatic about this, so I knew they would all come around.

…. anyways my point here is that your students don’t know if they really like it, because they probably haven’t read past the first chapter of the first book.

2.) They have seen the movies, so they don’t want to read the books


I was actually blown away by how many of my kids hadn’t seen the movies. I think kids in this age group were too young when the movies came out, so unless the parents are die hard Harry Potter fans (those are my favorite kind of parents), your students probably haven’t seen the movies either.

3. Some parents don’t want their children to read Harry Potter because it has “witchcraft.” 


I know this can be tricky, and something you might not be able to work around, but if you think for an instant that you can get all parents on board, then you should try.

Also, I don’t believe it’s about “witchcraft,” but I think that could be a philosophical debate.

My first piece of advice is to do a Harry Potter unit towards the end of the school year, when you have had a chance to build relationships and rapport with students and parents… That way they don’t think you’re some crazy die hard Harry Potter fan who is trying to teach their child witchcraft :).

But I found it was really best to wait towards the end of the year, because the parents really did trust my judgment and motives at the point.

On a more serious note, Harry Potter isn’t just about magic. It is about friendship, life and death, love, good and evil, growing up, discovery, bravery, courage, and sooooooo much more. All of these are things that parents just can’t argue with, so I encourage you find a way to show parents that Harry Potter teaches so much more than just waving a wand around.

4. If you are still doubting me…. even though I told you not to,  I know they will love it!


I started this unit two weeks ago and I have NEVER seen my students so in love with a story like they are now. EVERY SINGLE student is following along, is asking questions, is begging to read more every single day (sometimes after I have read for 30 minutes), and are writing beautiful reading responses that are digging so deep into EVERY SINGLE literature standard.

I did 4 other reading units with these kids, and no book has ever enraptured all my students like Harry Potter has. After the 2nd day, and I swear I am not making this up, 4 students came up to me and said, okay Harry Potter is actually really good.

I promise you, this book is worth it!

Fast fact: did you know that the Harry Potter Books are the best selling children’s books of all time. I mean, that’s pure math and data right there.

Okay, here are those pictures I promised :).

I put Platform 9 3/4 tickets on all of the their lockers so they had a ticket to get into my classroom. This really helped build up the excitement for students who weren’t so excited about Harry Potter.

This is when I stared to realize how many of them really didn’t know anything about Harry Potter, because they were all asking, “What is nine and three-fourths?” But it also shows they may have learned something from me during math :).

Here is the link to where I found the printable. I printed them in color and laminated them to make them look official.

This is what my classroom entrance looked like on the outside. This is what students saw when they came to their lockers in the morning.