
Who doesn’t love Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone? With likable characters, magical events, scary moments, and humor, the novel is a hit. In fact, it has sold over 120 million copies making it one of the best sellers of all time!
Summary
Shortly before Harry’s eleventh birthday, letters begin flooding into the Dursley’s home addressed to Harry. Mr. Dursley does everything he can to keep Harry from getting one of the letters. He even takes his family and flees to a secluded island on the eve of Harry’s eleventh birthday. At midnight, someone bangs on the door. Hagrid enters and personally gives Harry a letter. The letter is an invitation for Harry to attend Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry.
From there, the adventures begin…from fighting a mountain troll to besting an evil wizard, the novel is a page-turner that students love.
Activities for Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone
Do you want to give Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone a try? Below are some activities including free printables to enhance your novel study.
Book Unit Samples
Grab a free sample of the Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone Novel Study. This download includes the printable version for Chapter 1.
You can get the free book unit sample by clicking the button.
Teaching Idea #1 – Movie Trailer
Show the movie trailer as a hook to reading the novel or to elicit creative writing responses.
Writing Prompt Examples:
- What mood does the music create?
- Describe Hogwarts. Be sure to include vivid imagery.
- What emotions does Harry most likely feel when the broom flies into his hand? How does Neville Longbottom feel when he takes off on the broom?
- Describe how Dumbledore’s speech foreshadows events that are likely to take place.
- Explain the humor behind Hermione’s and Ron’s words…
Hermione – “I’m going to bed before either of you come up with another clever idea to get us killed — or worse, expelled.”
Ron – “She needs to sort out her priorities.”
Teaching Idea #1 – Magic Wands

Ideas for making wands are all over the Internet. You can get some great results by using a hot glue gun to ‘paint’ stripes and other shapes on a pencil. Then paint over the glue-covered pencil with brown, gold, and silver paint.
Our wands were created using dowels decorated with star-shaped stickers, beads, feathers, ribbons, and sequins. These wands were assembled with colored duct tape making them safe for even your youngest students to create.
Get the handout with the ideas and printables in this post here.
Teaching Idea #2 – Bertie Bott’s Every Flavor Bean Activities
1. Estimation
How many beans are in the bag? How many of each color? Are the bean colors distributed evenly? If not, which color bean did you find the most? Least?
2. Graphing
Graph each color. Divide the class into thirds. Have one-third create a bar graph, another third create a circle graph, and the final third create a picture or line graph. Compare the end results. Which graph worked the best for this graphing activity? I love using the NCES (National Center of Education Statistics) website for student graphing.
3. Greater Than – Less Than
Have students write 10 greater than/less than statements using the data from the graphs.
4. Fractions
Have students write a fraction for each color and simplify it to the lowest terms. For additional practice put different color combinations together. Example: How many orange and brown beans? Write a fraction and simplify it to the lowest terms.
5. Percent
Change each fraction in #4 to a percent.
6. Decimals
Change the fractions in #4 to decimals.
7. Rounding
Have students round the number of each color to the nearest tens place.
8. Probability
Have students figure out the probability of selecting a red, green, brown, etc. bean from the bag.
9. Problems
Have students solve a number of math problems using the order of operations and colors.
Examples
(Red + Green) x (Blue + Orange) =
2(Brown + Green) x 6(Yellow – Purple) x 4 =
10. Remainders
Divide the beans between a group of students to find the remainder. Change the number of students in the group and divide the beans again.
11. Mean, Median, Mode
Use the different colors in the bag of beans to determine the mean, median, and mode.
Teaching Idea #3 – Origami Golden Snitch
Teaching Idea #4 – Wizard Objects Puzzle
This puzzle makes a fun party activity.
Print the puzzle on cardstock. Laminate for repeated use. Cut out the squares before giving the puzzle to students.
The Challenge
The students must build a square of three by three squares so that all the objects match up. Both color and blackline puzzles are provided in the download.
This is the same handout as the link above.
Teaching Idea #5 – Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone Sorting Ceremony
We held a sorting ceremony. Each student put on the sorting hat. Students drew strips of paper ‘from a hat’ to determine which house they would be placed in. A competition to see which house would collect the most points for the rest of the Harry Potter unit made quite a fun challenge. Students earned points for getting reading logs signed, keeping assignment books up-to-date, and making good grades on quizzes throughout the unit.
The Sorting Hat
Oh, you may not think I’m pretty,
But don’t judge on what you see,
I’ll eat myself if you can find
A smarter hat than me.
You can keep your bowlers black,
Your top hats sleek and tall,
For I’m the Hogwarts Sorting Hat
and I can cap them all.
There’s nothing hidden in your head
The Sorting Hat can’t see,
So try me on and I will tell you
Where you ought to be.
Teaching Idea #6 – Wizard Punch for your Harry Potter Celebration
Students love making this foamy punch.
Place a gallon of lime sherbet in a ‘cauldron’ punch bowl. Add a fizzy drink such as ginger-ale or other clear soda such as Sprite, Sierra Mist, or 7 Up.
Teaching Idea #7 – Links to Teaching Resources on the Web
- Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone Discussion Guide
- Wizarding World Harry Potter from Scholastic
- J.K. Rowling Official Website
- Harry Potter Field Day
- The Magical World of Harry Potter Webquest
- Curricular Unit: The Science and Engineering Behind Harry Potter
- Wizarding World
- Free Bingo Game
- Decoding Fun
- Harry Potter Arithmancy
- Harry Potter Wands Stem Project
Several versions of Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone Novel Study are available.
See the product that inspired this post.

With the full version, you will receive not only the Boom Learning Decks but activities for Google Slides. Boom Learning is used for multiple-choice, short answer, and matching questions. Google Slides contain open-ended questions such as the constructed response questions.
