I'm not very sporty, I don't play any sports, I don't watch any sports, so I had some trouble really feeling this past year's summer reading theme. But I love Harry Potter and the combination of books and sports seemed like a perfect fit for the library. I held it the Tuesday after Harry's birthday (July 31) and the release of the Harry Potter play. I had really hoped to bring a collegiate Quidditch player in to lead some drills and talk about playing Quidditch in the real world, but none of the teams I reached out had players hanging around for the summer. So it was just me. I also knew I wanted to make brooms.
Making Brooms
There are tons of things on Pinterest and the Internets and Instructables on great ways to make brooms. Wizarding cosplay aside, the main function of the broom in Muggle Quidditch is to be a kind of fun hindrance when running and managing the ball. One of the most popular methods of making brooms is using pool noodles. It wasn't really in my budget to buy noodles so I went looking for other materials. I considered duct taping paper towel tubes together but then decided to try our local recycle store to see if they had any large cardboard tubes and did they ever! EcoWorks is just a few blocks from the library and they collect leftover items from industrial and commercial businesses as well as individuals and then sells them at an extra low cost, specifically intended for educators. They have everything from tile samples to bolts of cloth to random knitting needles. I think these are becoming a popular thing, so definitely check to see if there's a similar organization in your area. I think these tubes were probably from a company that uses large rolls of paper or some other kind of material, you could also try going to businesses directly. The tubes I got were a bit over 5 feet long and I figured I could cut them in half (somehow) and get two brooms out of each one. I got 12 and they were 25 cents a piece, a pretty awesome deal. I ended up using a very old hacksaw to cut them in half (paper dulls blades fast, so you won't want to use a new blade on something like this) without too much trouble.
Next was the bristle part of the broom. I originally cut out pieces of yellow paper to be rolled around the end of the tube but then I found a roll of yellow vinyl, like you would use as a tablecloth, and it was perfect. We have a big selection of fun patterned duct tape so the kids could really personalize their brooms when taping on the bristles.
I made a paper with broom names from the Harry Potter books/movies/videogames using information from Muggles’ Guide to Harry Potter from wikibooks.org so that kids could give their brooms authentic names if they wanted.
I used some large printable mailing labels we had lying around to make big stickers (cut out by volunteers) for decorating the brooms. There were clouds, comets, firebolts, and shooting stars, some in color, some the kids could color in if they wanted. We had markers they could use to write the name of the broom on the handle. For mine I actually went over the name in glitter but decided that we wouldn't be able to do that in the program because they wouldn't be able to dry in time for us to play Quidditch with them. I went with the Comet 260, being a Tonks fan. This picture is before I switched to the plastic vinyl bristles.
As the kids finished their brooms I had them practice moving around the room with them between their legs until everyone was finished. I was relieved that this part went pretty quickly. We had a range of kids from 5 to 12 and I had two teen volunteers and some parents that helped with assembly. I made sure to run around with my broom a little first to kind of break the "looking like a crazy person" ice. They got the hang of it quick.
The Rest of the Equipment
The US Quidditch equipment requirements stipulate using 1 semi-deflated volleyball as a quaffle and 3 semi-deflated kickballs as bludgers. For goals they suggest taping hula hoops to chairs or whatever you've got that will hold them up high, an official game has 6 hoops. I had high hopes of borrowing balls from parks and rec in our city but never was able to get anyone to answer me. Instead I purchased two volleyballs and 2 rubber balls from 5 and Below, this was the most expensive part of my program but now we have them for future uses. We already had two 4-square balls which I also used. I used a paperclip to deflate the balls until the were pretty easy to grip one handed, since I didn't know where our pump was. I duck taped three hula hoops to the tops of chairs, another branch had them laying around. Our program room wasn't really big enough for a full Quidditch field.
Playing Quidditch
We ran three drills:
- The first was a simple maneuvering exercise. I put 6 chairs in two long rows and we slalomed around them several times.
- Next we practiced passing. We got in two separate lines and two kids at a time side-stepped down the room with their brooms throwing a quaffle back and forth.
- The last drill we did was shooting. One of our teen helpers acted as keeper and we lined up half way across the room and everyone got a three chances to get the quaffle through a hoop. I had to get the teen to ease up on the kids a bit, but otherwise it went smoothly.
There are lot of drills available on YouTube and through US Quidditch, most of them are adapted from soccer and rugby.
I hadn't planned on playing a full game but the kids really wanted to scrimmage. I printed out this wonderful handout from US Quidditch with the rules and game play on it for kids to take home and through some trial and error, we played a heavily modified game. The US Quidditch website has a lot of tips on playing Quidditch with different age groups.
We broke into two teams, I think we had seven on each side. I put a teen on each team to help, they continued to play the keepers because I was most concerned about the safety of that position. We gave out two bludgers to each team and a quaffle to each team. We placed one hoop at each end of the room. I stood on the sideline of the center of the room. The rules were that the bludgers could tag anyone who crossed the center of the room and came on the side with your goal. If you were tagged with the bludger you had to return to your end of the room, kind of like home base. There was no throwing of bludgers, just using them to tag kids, I was very firm on this and had to remind the kids a lot. The beaters (kids with the bludgers) were the only ones who used them. All of the other kids had to try to get the quaffles down the field and into the goals. They had a really hard time grasping strategy but the teens were able to kind of take control and had a few huddles to help them out. I won't lie, there were some direct hits to faces, balls were flying everywhere, some kids tripped flat out on the floor, but there were no tears, no blood, no bruises. The deflated balls and relative strength of 5 to 9 year olds kept it fairly safe and bloodless. I consider this to be the major success of the program- no injuries!
The kids had a blast, there were strips of yellow plastic all over the floor, kids were reminded that their brooms were not for hitting and anyone seen hitting someone with a broom in the library would be asked to leave, no warnings, and things seemed to work out fine.
