Harry Potter at Home
At the beginning of April, Harry Potter author J.K. Rowling announced the launch of Harry Potter at Home, a new online hub that aims to cast “a Banishing Charm on boredom” – particularly for students and teachers seeking relief from the doldrums of quarantine. A collaboration between Rowling and Audible, Bloomsbury, OverDrive, Pottermore Publishing and Scholastic, the website is full of craft tutorials, educator resources and more. Fans can test their Potter trivia knowledge through a series of quizzes, read interviews with some of the film franchise’s actors or learn how to draw a niffler.
Rowling has also lifted copyright restrictions for educators, allowing teachers to remotely share the Harry Potter series with their pupils by recording videos of themselves reading the books aloud. Users can also access the audiobook for Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone for free via Audible’s new Stories platform or digital library service Overdrive.
“Parents, teachers and carers working to keep children amused and interested while we’re on lockdown might need a bit of magic,” Rowling tweeted on April 1.
Your ticket to Hogwarts’ Distance Learning Platform 9 3/4 is at wizardingworld.com!
Some Good News
John Krasinski’s original YouTube series is a delightful show in which Krasinski shares good news to lift people’s spirits during the COVID-19 pandemic. Krasinski’s web series, which premiered on April 4, was an instant hit and spawned many spin-offs around the world (including one by local whiz kid, Kosmo Esplan).
Subscribe to the YouTube Channel to see the upcoming shows.
Mount Rushmore Virtual Tours
Visit Mount Rushmore National Memorial – a massive sculpture carved into Mount Rushmore in the Black Hills, offering a free online digital portal and virtual tours and a large collection of videos and photographs.
