Potions Class

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I wanted to do 2 different activities for potions class. My husband suggested Insta-Snow as an easy, fun thing for everyone to do. Everyone had their own cup that we poured a scoop of powder into and a small cup with water. It was a HUGE hit with both the kids and adults!
Drinkable Potions
My husband and I took an evening and experimented with all sorts of candies, drink powders and liquids to figure out what would look the best. Surprisingly, cotton candy was our favorite ingredient! We colored the flavored water with light food coloring.  We used very small spoons from Party City. Warning: Do not set out the cotton candy or Pop rocks early. We did and they ended up deflating and fusing together.  

Ingredients
Sugar-free flavored Sparkling Water (Pond slime, Horklump juice, Infusion of Wormwood)
Pop rocks (Crystallized yew tree sap, Crushed Erumpent horn)
Cotton candy (Spun spider web ball, Werewolf hair)
Powdered drink mix (Octopus powder, Blood wartcap powder) - We used Hawaiian Punch powder and Red Crush powder
Brain Elixir
Ingredients
4 ounces Pond Slime
2 spoonfuls Crystallized Yew Tree Sap
1 Spun Spider Web Ball
1 small pinch of Werewolf Hair
2 ounces Horklump Juice
Sprinkle of Blood Wartcap Powder

Directions
1. Add Pond Slime into cup. 
2. Mix in 1 spoonful of Crystallized Yew Tree Sap and wait 5 seconds, stir once.
3. Add Spun Spider Web Ball then Werewolf Hair, wait 15 seconds.
4. Add Horklump Juice and stir in last spoonful of Crystallized Yew Tree Sap. 
5. Stir 4 times to the right, then 1 time to the left. 
6. Sprinkle in Blood Wartcap Powder and stir 6 times.
Strength Potion
Ingredients
4 ounces Infusion of Wormwood
2 ounces Pond Slime
2 spoonfuls Crystallized Yew Tree Sap
1 large pinch of Werewolf Hair
Sprinkle of Octopus Powder

Directions
1. Mix Pond Slime and Infusion of Wormwood and stir 3 times.
 2. Sprinkle in Crystallized Yew Tree Sap and wait 15 seconds.
3. Add Werewolf Hair and wait 5 seconds.
4. Stir 2 times to the left, then 2 times to the right. 
5. Sprinkle in Octopus Powder and stir 6 times, alternating directions after each turn. 
Elixir to Induce Fits of Laughter
Ingredients
1 spoonful Crystallized Yew Tree Sap
4 ounces Infusion of Wormwood
2 Spun Spider Web Balls
1 spoonful Crushed Erumpet Horn
2 ounces Horklump Juice
Sprinkle of Blood Wartcap Powder

Directions
1. Add Crystallized Yew Tree Sap to cup.
2. Pour in Infusion of Wormwood and wait 7 seconds.
3. Add Spun Spider Web Balls.
4. Stir in Crushed Erumpet Horn, then pour in Horklump Juice and stir.
6. Sprinkle in Blood Wartcap Powder and stir 10 times.

Herbology Class

After searching all the different Herbology Class ideas, nothing was really exciting me. Most of the ideas were either re-planting mandrake roots (I wasn't willing to make that many mandrakes) or a class on the Venus Fly Trap (pretty sure I wouldn't be able to keep the plant alive until the party.)
Then one night it came to me; Poisonous plants!
My sister (who is a teacher) taught the class. She added in lessons on muggle herbology and taught the kids about aloe plants, herbal teas and helpful plants in the backyard also. (Unfortunately I do not have the lesson plans for the muggle herbology.)
My sister has a sunroom that we turned into the Herbology greenhouse. I printed off large photos of each of the plants to hang up in the herbology room for the lesson. We also decorated with herbology posters, real plants, fake flowers, and vines. 
Poisonous Plant Lesson

Random Facts:
  • Most poisonous plants are used medicinally
  • The ancient Greeks recognized the complexity - the word pharmakon means both remedy and poison.
  • In ancient times the Italians in general, and women specifically, were widely suspected of being poisoners.
  • Between about 132-83 BC, Mithradates VI Eupator, king of Pontus, an ancient area on the south coast of the Black Sea, sought protection from poisoning by taking small amounts of poisons to generate a resistance to them. It is from this practice that we get the word "mitridatize," meaning to render a person immune to a poison
  • Mithradates is said to have created a daily antidote of poisonous plants to protect himself from such poisons. Mithradates was also said to have tested many plant poisons on condemned criminals.
Foxglove
  • Best to wear gloves when working with Foxglove
  • Name "foxglove" refers to the shape of flowers. They look like gloves for fingers that perfectly fit the paws of foxes and other small animals.
  • Consumption of even the smallest piece of foxglove may end up fatally for humans. Wild animals are aware of toxins hidden inside this plant and they avoid it.
  • Many people suffer from digoxin toxicity every year, either by eating foxglove or by drinking water in which the plants have been growing.
  • The sap, flowers, seeds, stems, roots and leaves of the foxglove plant are all toxic if ingested. The largest concentration of the toxin that makes foxglove poisonous occurs in vigorously growing shoots. Even if the plant parts are dried or boiled, the toxic ingredients remain active. While ingesting any part of this plant at any time during its life can be fatal, it is most toxic in the period just before seed ripening.
Mandrake
  • Nightshade, relative of Belladonna
  • Poisonous when ingested
  • Harry Potter Reference: When matured, can be cut up to serve as a prime ingredient for the Mandrake Restorative Draught, which is to cure those who have been petrified
  • One of the most written about plants in history with whole books devoted to its properties and its ability to scream when pulled from the ground.
  • The Old Testament is the first confirmed reference to mandrake. Genesis, chapter 30, verse 14 says that Reuben ‘found mandrakes in the field’ during the wheat harvest. According to Hebrew folklore, however, what Reuben found was a dead donkey which had been tethered to a mandrake and, trying to escape its tether, had pulled the mandrake up and died as a result. This may be the start of the story of the scream of a mandrake as deadly, which was almost certainly perpetuated as a method of avoiding theft of a valuable plant.
  • In sufficient quantities, it induces a state of unconsciousness and was used as an anaesthetic for surgery in ancient times
  • A deadly poison in Persia
Tomato/Potato
  • Both are in the Nightshade family - Same family as Belladonna and Mandrake
  • Stems, leaves and roots are toxic on both plants.
  • During Queen Elizabeth 1 reign, tomatoes were grown for ornamental purposes only, as the whole plant including the fruit was considered poisonous.
  • Tomato plants can be toxic to dogs if they eat large amounts of the fruit, or chew plant material.
  • Leaves, stems, and green unripe fruit of the tomato plant contain small amounts of the toxic alkaloid tomatine. However, levels of tomatine in foliage and green fruit are generally too small to be dangerous unless large amounts are consumed, for example, as greens
  • The United States National Institutes of Health strongly advises against eating potatoes that are green below the skin
  • Though the green color that forms on the skin of a potato is actually chlorophyll, which isn’t toxic at all (it’s the plant’s response to light exposure), the presence of chlorophyll indicates concentrations of solanine. The nerve toxin is produced in the green part of the potato (the leaves, the stem, and any green spots on the skin). The reason it exists? It’s a part of the plant’s defense against insects, disease and other predators.
  • Wherever the potato was introduced, it was considered weird, poisonous, and downright evil.  In France and elsewhere, the potato was accused of causing not only leprosy, but also narcosis, early death, and of the destroying the soil where it grew.  There was so much opposition to the potato that an edict was made in the town of Besancon, France stating: “In view of the fact that the potato is a pernicious substance whose use can cause leprosy, it is hereby forbidden, under pain of fine, to cultivate it.”
  • Legend has it that he made a gift of the potato plant to Queen Elizabeth I (1533-1603).  The local gentry were invited to a royal banquet featuring the potato in every course.  Unfortunately, the cooks were uneducated in the matter of potatoes, tossed out the lumpy-looking tubers and brought to the royal table a dish of boiled stems and leaves (which are poisonous), which promptly made everyone deathly ill. The potatoes were then banned from court.​
Monkshood (Wolf's bane)
  • The Greeks hailed it as the Queen of Poisons, and until the 20th century, it was the deadliest toxin known to man
  • The Greeks called Aconite lykotonon, meaning wolf slaying (Wolfsbane); this plant earned the name because it was rubbed on the arrows used when hunting wolves. Several species of Aconitum have been used as arrow poisons. Soldiers would dump aconite down wells in order to poison an enemy’s water supply.
  • Do not get toxic aconitum sap on your skin as it can be absorbed dermally, so wear gloves when handling aconitum.
  • The Wolfsbane Potion is an innovative and complex potion that relieves, but does not cure, the symptoms of lycanthropy (Werewolf). The main ingredient is wolfsbane (also referred to as aconite or monkshood). As such, this Potion is very dangerous when incorrectly concocted, since Aconite is a very poisonous substance.
  • Aconitum species are highly toxic, although they were used in medicine as a pain-reliever, diuretic, heart sedative, and to induce sweating.
  • "As for monkshood and wolfsbane, they are the same plant, which also goes by the name of aconite
  • It was used to poison arrows in ancient China but not just the tips. The shafts would be smeared with a paste made from the plant in the hope that anyone attempting to remove an arrow from a wounded soldier would absorb the poison.
  • You could kill an entire village by putting the plant's roots in the drinking well​.
Belladonna
  • The flowering plant is native to Europe and can grow up to ten feet tall if left to grow for years. Although all parts of the plant are poisonous, the shiny black berries are most poisonous.
  • Belladonna is one of the most toxic plants found in the Eastern Hemisphere.
  • One leaf or 2 to 5 berries contain enough toxins to kill an adult man.
  • Belladonna means "beautiful lady" in Italian. The unusual name of the plant originates from the old habit of Italian women using eye drops made of deadly nightshade to dilate their pupils to look more attractive.
  • Despite high content of toxins in the plant, pheasant, sheep, rabbits, and hares eat deadly nightshade without visible side effects.
  • It was a favorite poison of the Romans. Nero's official poisoner Locusta used belladonna leaves and berries.
  • Early humans were used belladonna to prepare poison arrows.
  • Medicinal Use: Belladonna has been used in herbal medicine for centuries as a pain reliever, muscle relaxer, and anti-inflammatory, and to treat menstrual problems, peptic ulcer disease, histaminic reaction, and motion sickness.