Playful Rooted

Last week, one of our favorite spots, Science City at Union Station, hosted a Harry Potter-themed Wizarding Week! When I first heard about it two weeks prior, I had tickets booked within about five minutes. I thought Luca might have fun at this event….but I KNEW I would have fun. 😉

Fact: I’m such a Harry Potter fan that as an undergraduate student in college, I applied to be in a graduate-level literature class on J.K. Rowling and Modern Fantasy. I got in. We read all the HP books. It was awesome.

It was a little sparse in terms of visitors while we were there, which surprised me but was obviously due to the C-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named. Counting our blessings; I’m so glad we got to attend this event. Yes, we had to wear masks and all that jazz. But it was still really really fun.

First up was wand making! And it started with a very important decision: which House would Luca be in?? We decided on Ravenclaw since he’s quite a bright and clever little person. Thus, his wand was blue and silver. One of the beads glows in the dark, and there’s a tiny lightning bolt on the end. So cute.

The boys both had fun mixing up potions and painting on the walls in Potions Class at the Creative Corner. 🙂

We also got to do some cool science activities that I did not take photos of: We learned how to make dry-erase marker drawings FLOAT! (Super fun. I’m not telling you how it works in case I need to bust out this trick at a party one day.) And blended up some troll bogies. Highly necessary.

The outside portion of Science City is always a favorite for the kiddos, and it was extra special this time with a QUIDDITCH PITCH! A little hard to see, but the boys had fun running around and tossing the balls through the hoops. Sawyer was especially cute running up to the hoop and yelling to be picked up so he could throw it through, too. Anything Luca can do, Sawyer can do. Just ask him.

One very humbling activity was folding Patronus Pickers, which proved to me once again that Ben was a much cooler middle schooler than I ever was. I definitely remember other kids making these when we were like 11, and I definitely remember never being able to figure out how to do it. Here we are, 23 years later, and I still couldn’t figure it out. For Ben, however, it was like riding a bike. I mean, you could tell the man had had plenty of practice. He must have been such a cool tween.

Harry Potter stuff concluded, we spent the rest of the morning having our normal fun at Science City.

Generating energy on the human hamster wheel is always a fave.

They recently opened a new room that’s only open to kids three and under. I love it for two primary reasons: 1. Sawyer has a BLAST there because everything is sized for him (and Luca likes it too), and 2. There’s a super nice attendant who stands sentry at the entrance, so I don’t have to worry about taking my eyes off one of the kids for a second or two.

It’s really a great space, and if you have kids of this age, I totally recommend it! I’ll be sad when Luca’s too old for it….next month. Luckily there are still tons of awesome activities at Science City for all ages.

But personally, I can’t wait until the next Wizarding Week! 😉

xo!