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Charms Lesson: Folding Charm {Let's make snowflakes!}
It was time for another Charms lesson, which graciously your Professor has charmed the classroom with heating charms on this February day. The classroom is arranged almost ordinary except for the fact that the desks have been pushed to sides of the room.
In lieu of chairs and desks, there's pillows lined up in a circular fashion. There's also a stack of coloured construction paper sitting on one of the desks. On the chalkboard, there's a note saying to take a seat on a pillow and do not touch the paper. Perhaps Professor Sayse will offer some explanation soon enough? Of whom you can find already seated, cross-legged on one of the pillows, seemingly meditating?
[ooc: class will begin in 20-24 hours, but take a seat]
Lesson Progression
Q1: What/where might you use the folding charm for? [ooc posted 23 Feb 17:09 GMT-6]
Mini Activity: Practice Severing and Folding Charms [ooc posted 24 Feb 21:26 GMT-6]
Main Activity: Making Paper Snowflakes [ooc posted 2 Mar 19:18pm GMT-6]
*trying something new of including time posted for references so you can have an approximate time of when our next post might be. Feel free to let me know if it's helpful <3
Upon arriving Maisey took a seat… or a pillow as a seat. No greeting for the professor since she was at the moment meditiding? So taking Professor Sayse lead, she sat crossed legged as well. Since they weren't supposed to get the paper on the desk yet. She waited quietly with her eyes closed for the lesson to begin.
Opening up her eyes at Sayse’ voice, she listened to her and her question. Folding charms? Well that was easy for her although some of the others had the same idea for what a folding charm would be good for. ” Like some of the other have said, Laundry and packing I would have to agree that the folding charm would be useful in those situations.” Especially when her mum gave her the chore of doing the laundry. Too bad she was a few years from being able to do magic outside of school.
Maisey really enjoyed listening to the others give their answers. Hearing them always seemed to give her ideas. She would have to work on those ideas later. First she was going to have to learn these charms. . She retrieved a few pieces of paper to work with.Plico"Plico!" She pointed her wand at the paper moving her wand in the direction she wanted to fold to go. Oh wow that was neat! ”Plico!” Moving her wand in the other direction to make another fold.
Now it was time to work on the other charm, the severing charm. Diffindo”Diffindo! Diffindo! Slashing downward with her wand. The paper had been cut in half but not evenly at all. At least cut the paper though. She got another piece of paper and tried it again. ”Diffindo!” She said with a bit of a slower slashing movement with her wand. Now that was more like it, straight cut lines and the halves were pretty even too. She continued practicing on the papers, folding them, unfolding them and charming them to fold again. She went back to practicing diffindo after a while she had strips of paper and some teen weenie pieces of paper all over her area. She took the time to clean up the smaller cut up pieces.
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So, they were definitely focusing on spells that worked predominately with paper with possibilities on fabric. Alright…still cool and useful. Rajesh finally picked up a piece of scrap paper as directed so he could practice the spells being given. Diffindo was certainly one he had learned and used before, but the folding charm was a new one. “Plico,” he practiced the incantation first. “Plico….plico…plico,” over and over again before finally taking out his wand to try it out on the paper. “Plico!” he cast once more, his wand tip pointed at the paper and then tracing above the surface where he was trying for the fold.
Cue one folded piece of paper.
With a few more tries, it was followed several times. It could certainly come in handy folding letters…especially if one had many of them to do. Now flattening out his piece of paper, he moved onto the severing charm. “Diffindo!” he cast, the paper being cut in half albeit not entirely straight. Raj supposed it was likely because when he’d used it in the past, it wasn’t quite something that needed to be precise. “Diffindo!” he tried again, his paper now cut into four pieces, this time a bit straighter. He wasn’t entirely sure about trying it wordlessly.
YesJess! | Captain Goggles | Mama Badger | Eva's Soul Sister | An OG™ | It's all in the Numbers
Professor Sayse was monitoring the practicing of the spell right now, blinking when Bella announced loudly about it being a date. Uh, was it necessary to call that aloud? Perhaps her distractions with that prospect had caused her to forget the spell incantation but she quickly corrected herself.
She appreciated the out-of-box answers, so no worries there Jude. Also if he wanted extra help with non-verbals, he needed to only ask. But since she wasn't a legilmens, she wouldn't know he had interest (or trouble) in mastering the non-verbals. So instead she continued her observations, noticing how warm it really was in there. Perhaps too warm? No one was complaining though - or dozing off - from what she could tell at least so that was good.
It was Brandon she was keen to observe next being that he was one of the younger students, but he seemed to have mastered it as well. She even liked the way he explored making a 'crooked fold' as well. Impressive, Marilyn decided, making a mental note to make mention of what Brandon figured out through trial-and-error.
This particular spell didn't work on humans, but that didn't mean there wasn't one or couldn't be one invented. Vera and Hope were doing well too. Well other than the fact that Hope seemed to have cut too deep which went into the desk? Noticing Hope's anxious look, she smiled encouragingly. It wasn't something to worry about, as it could easily be fixed....
Maisey did pretty well too with these charms. Actually all the first years did impressively well, considering and all. And there was Raj, whom also seemed to master the incantations. Although surprisingly none of the older students wanted to attempt it nonverbally? Perhaps it was something she would need work more independently with just them. Although not everyone had the desire to learn nonverbals either.
"You all did very well with the practicing of these two spells. Now to put them into practice with a fun exercise of making paper snowflakes!" Marilyn exclaimed. "You may have made these the muggle way with folding and using scissors, but we want to practice these spells so I want you to use Plico to make the folds and diffindo to make the cuts. There's no wrong way to make a paper snowflake either, since snowflakes are quite unique, so feel free to be as original as you like with your patterns."
ooc: meant to post this a couple days ago, but time got the best of us *blush* Here's a link for reference, but essentially using the two spells to make the folds/cuts. Anyway, this is the main activity this lesson, so you'll have a few days work on this... Any questions, please ask either IC or OOC. Have fun. Be creative. You may include actual pictures if you wish.... or just descriptions is fine too.
__________________
______________So much is happening to me. So much that I can't even see.
So many words of wisdom that I am trying to be. It'll be in my own time.
~ Mrs. Steve Harrington ~ It be like that sometimes.
Jude had actually thought of asking Sayse for help but there had been a lot going on with him lately from NEWT studies to dance practice to some personal issues he was still trying to work out… it was just a lot. Perhaps he would make the time to speak to her soonish.
Paper snowflakes!!! How fun!
The Hufflepuff was immediately eager to get started. Construction paper and a wand was all that was needed as opposed to extra materials a Muggle may need. No offense to Muggles. Jude selected a bright purple paper to get started with.
First up, it was folded in half; this was done with an utterance of ‘Plico’ and a point and movement of the wand to get the paper folded diagonally. This resulted in a piece left out of place and it was the perfect time to use the Severing Charm! “Diffindo!’’ Jude muttered confidently then expertly snipped away the excess.
“Plico!’’ A point and an appropriate movement later, the paper was folded in half. A repeat of those steps saw it then being folded into thirds.
It wasn't a date in the manner that Professor Sayse or one of her peers thought at all. It was a meeting of good friends nothing more. Refocusing on the lesson and the next activity Bella listened closely to the instructions. They were making snowflakes using construction paper and the spells learned in the lesson. Cool and Fun!
Going up front Bella got herself a bright slytherin green paper before retreating to her desk to get started. She eagerly wanted to see the end result. First she folded the paper in half casting "Plico!" firmly and wand pointed to make the green paper fold diagonally. Now she had excess paper at the bottom which she needed to cut off. Now the severing charm came in handy. "Diffindo!" Bella casted determindely to snipp, snipp away the excess paper. Then she casted "Plico!" two times in succession to first fold her paper in half, and then into cute shaped thirds. Now she needed cut off the points on her paper which she did by casting "Diffindo!" again. Bella did this to flatten out the top of her paper now she just had the last steps left. What pattern did she want on her snowflake?
~ Mrs. Steve Harrington ~ It be like that sometimes.
Definitely not a romantic date, professor! Jude was only into guys but he and Bella shared a really close friendship! Friend dates with the two of them were quite common. Maybe he’d present Bella with one of his snowflakes, as a ‘thank you’ for always being there for him.
Now that the construction paper was folded in thirds, Jude aimed his wand at the points. “Diffindo!’’ The incantation was repeated until the points were all cut off. Using a pencil, random but sensible patterns were traced out onto the paper. He had no idea what he was doing and simply went along with his instincts.
Another mutter of ‘Diffindo’ saw the Hufflepuff winding his wand’s way through the unmarked spots, cutting them away as carefully as he possibly could. It took him a bit but the task was eventually completed, leaving him to unfold the finished product. Jude eyed it through slightly narrowed but criticising eyes. Yep, it definitely was not perfect: the patterns were far from symmetrical. But it was his first attempt at snowflakes magically and he was pleased with the outcome.
“For you,’’ Jude whispered to Bella as he placed the flake before her. Then an orange paper was selected so that he would continue with practice.
"You all did very well with the practicing of these two spells. Now to put them into practice with a fun exercise of making paper snowflakes!" Marilyn exclaimed. "You may have made these the muggle way with folding and using scissors, but we want to practice these spells so I want you to use Plico to make the folds and diffindo to make the cuts. There's no wrong way to make a paper snowflake either, since snowflakes are quite unique, so feel free to be as original as you like with your patterns."
Hope was delighted! Snowflakes! Just like they made at home to decorate the house in winter. Of course, her family usually used bits of spare cloth as well as paper, but paper was good. Well, hopefully. Hope was thinking it would be very easy to cut too much and make a mistake with paper, but, well, there was no other way to get better at something than to practice, was there?
Taking a fresh sheet of paper, she sat for a moment visualizing how the folds and cuts should go in her mind. Then she set to work. First, she measured it against her wand to make sure the paper was really perfectly square. Next, she used the new (to her) Plico charm to fold it diagonally in half to make a triangle--oh good, it was straight this time! (see, all that practice really did help). Then she folded it in half again, to make a smaller triangle. Excited by the success of her use of the folding charm, Hope made a series of complicated folds until she wound up with a thin, tall triangular shape, from which she used Diffindo to snip off the bottom, so that the bottom edge of the triangle was straight. Getting carried away by this time, she made about four more of these, till she had a little army of folded triangles around her.
Now for the fun part! One after another, Hope took the triangles and used the Diffindo charm to snip away bits and pieces in various sizes and shapes. She tried to be careful, but every once in a while she snipped a bit too much--oh dear, that would leave a hole! Hopefully those would look all right in the whole scheme of things. At least she hadn't cut the desk again.
When she was finally done, Hope gently opened up each triangle to reveal a differently shaped snowflake. She was happy that most of her mistakes seemed to blend into the overall pattern in most cases (though there was this one poor snowflake that had a bit of a diagonal tear on the bottom of one side). Hope pretended to herself that that snowflake had been blown about by the winter wind a bit too roughly and that was why it was torn.
Looking around at the others, she got a twinkle in her eye. Picking up her wand, she said "Wingardium Leviosa!" and levitated one of her snowflakes into the air, where she made it dance around.
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So Vera was well aware there were usual patterns one could follow to create paper snowflakes, and yet... each was supposed to be different right? So... yolo. Selecting a piece of blue paper, she stared at it for a moment - squinting at it with her eyes and her tongue poking out in concentration as she plotted her first crease. Probably easiest to just... make it as small as possible right? Seemed correct.
Taking her wand, she pointed it at the piece of paper. "Plico!" Before drawing a line straight down the middle. One down. "Plico!" Another line down the middle. "Plico!" Another down the middle, putting it in half again. 3 folds so far. "Plico! Plico! Plico!" Six times in half seemed a little too much but uh... it would do. With the folds done, she picked it up and started on her cuts.
"Diffindo! Diffindo! Diffindo!" With the paper soooooo tiny she figured making smaller cuts was the better option to not have the whole thing fall apart from tiny slivers of paper holding it together. But by the time she was done cutting and unfolded her first snowflake... it was looking pretty rough with just tine triangles out here and there. How in the world????
Alright. Take two. She grabbed a purple piece of paper to start again.
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Let them point and laugh at who we are, it's you and me here dancing from the start
Brandon knew from the start that he wanted to make a really cool and complex snowflake. He could take his time, but it had to be a perfect snowflake. "plico," he said quietly, folding the paper perfectly in half. First, he spent quite a bit of time sketching out where he wanted to cut- he knew he needed to cut it so that it had pretty spokes like a cross between a bike wheel and an evergreen tree. Then he wanted to cut a pattern in the middle of the snowflake, which was made possible by the half-fold. One nice thing about diffindo was that he could be more precise than he was with scissors. Brandon loved precision.
"diffindo. diffindo. diffindo. diffindo. diffindo." Brandon made big cuts to form the rough shape he wanted.
"diffindo. diffindo. diffindo. diffindo. diffindo. diffindo. diffindo. diffindo. diffindo. diffindo. diffindo. diffindo. diffindo. diffindo. diffindo." Maybe he was going a little overboard on precision at this point. But he was proud of the finished product, and he smiled when he opened it and saw his perfect snowflake. He figured it was worth the effort!
Now for his next one, which he wanted to be different from the first but just as good.
Rhibear ~ Madam Solo ~ Dark Brooding Girl ~ Accio Jedi ~ Gryffinclaw ~ Just a doll
SPOILER!!: mini activity catchup
Yes, Desiree knew her answer was specific, but all the general ones had been taken. Still she beamed at the professor’s feedback. Ooh, so there was a variation of the folding charm just for clothes? Probably the one she saw her dad use to fold the laundry. Was that the version she should use in sewing? No, never mind. She beamed again when her answer got a mention during the lecture. She couldn’t wait to try making pleats with the folding charm later!
Folding paper sounded pretty fun too, though. After jotting down the incantations for the two spells, Desiree took out a sheet of scrap paper and set it aside for now. “Dih-fin-doh,” she practiced the incantation under her breath. “Diffindo, Diffindo…” Okay, that was enough of that. Time to practice it for real!
As she looked at her scrap paper, an idea occurred to her. “Diffindo!” she cast, making the downward slash movement as she aimed her wand. A section of the edge tore off the paper. “Diffindo! DIffindo!” she cast again on two other sides. Now there was only one side of the paper she hadn’t cut. This time she was going to try it nonverbally. She aimed her wand at the remaining edge, making the downward slash, and… nothing happened. Darn! While she was mildly disappointed not to get it right on the first try, she wasn’t giving up! She tried again, concentrating with all her might, and this time a cut appeared. It wasn’t as straight as the other three, but she was calling that a win!
On to the next spell! “Plico,” Desiree said under her breath. “Plico, plico, plico…” She picked up her wand, making a diagonal line. “Plico!” she cast, and the paper folded in half.. She unfolded it and cast again, “Plico!” Another diagonal fold, this time in the opposite direction. Once again, she unfolded the paper. “Plico!” She aimed her wand at one corner of the paper, making it fold inward, then repeated the process with the three remaining corners.
Desiree didn’t get a chance to try the folding charm nonverbally before the lesson moved on, but she did manage to fold half a cootie catcher. Sticking the unfinished cootie catcher in her bag to work on later, she listened to the next set of instructions. Ooh, paper snowflakes… she was wondering what they were doing with paper if it wasn’t origami. That sounded fun!
What kind of paper snowflake should she make? As Desiree contemplated a design, her thoughts turned to a certain Disney character associated with snow. That’s what she’d do, an Elsa-inspired snowflake! Who knows, if she finished early, she might do more snowflakes inspired by the other Disney princesses.
She picked an icy blue sheet of paper for her first snowflake. Making a diagonal line with her wand just like she’d done for the cootie catcher she made earlier, she cast, “Plico!” The fold left some excess paper along the edge, which she took care of with a quick, “Diffindo!”
“Plico! Plico!” she cast, folding the paper in half and then into thirds. Now she had to even out the top. This time, she’d try casting nonverbally again. With a look of intense concentration, she made the downward motion with her wand. Diffindo! Her nonverbal cut was still crooked, but it looked a bit better than her earlier attempt. Now came the fun part, the actual design! Picking up a pencil (because it made cleaner lines than a quill), she carefully drew a diamond pattern along the folded edge of the paper.
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Old voices I had thought long since dead whisper of another life I might have led If I could take that second chance, If I could make my life anew, If only dreams came true...
Toothless - Napoleon of Crime - Gryffinclaw - Owl Emissary - Pirate Auror - DoctorDonna
Paper Snowflakes?
Professor Sayre was right, Raj did remember making them with his grandmother one year when caught inside during a snow storm. A creative outlet when it was far too blustery to play out in the real white stuff. Now he just had to work through the steps on making them with spells used instead of just his hands and a pair of scissors. The folding of course before most of the cutting. So to begin, he reached for a complete, as of yet uncut piece of parchment and brought it to the center of his work surface before picking up his wand once more.
“Plico!” he cast, tracing the diagonal line from the top left corner to a point on the right hand side creating the first fold that made a square. “Diffindo!” he followed through to cut the excess paper off at the end. Clearing the cut paper away, Rajesh focused on more folding. “Plico!” the Ravenclaw cast again, this time from the bottom left point across the original fold.
~ Mrs. Steve Harrington ~ It be like that sometimes.
With his very first snowflake passed off as a token to Bells, Jude focused his attention on crafting a second. This time around, he managed to go through the process a tad quicker than before {Plico working quite superbly for him at each step}, only slowing down when it came to drawing the patterns onto the paper. Art that involved stationery was definitely not his thing so he took his time to draw, opting for a different variety of markings this time.
Even using Diffindo to cut away the unwanted bits of paper went smoothly though, of course, it took a lot of focus for him to not accidentally cut away the patterns. In the end, when the construction paper was unfolded with great zest to reveal the snowflake, its design somewhat lopsided as well but quite attractive in his opinion.
Excellent!
Following Hope’s lead, the Hufflepuff levitated his second flake to join hers. His flake did a series of happy twirl. Overall, they both looked pretty cute up there if you asked him.
YesJess! | Captain Goggles | Mama Badger | Eva's Soul Sister | An OG™ | It's all in the Numbers
Professor Sayse mostly wanted to do this activity because she too wanted to make paper snowflakes. She was of course keeping eye on the students to make sure no one inappropriately used the cutting charm, but it seemed they were getting along just fine with the construction paper, so she took one of the pink papers set to work on her own snowflake, casting nonverbally on the marks she'd made for where to cut. It was when she unfolded it to inspect her handiwork that she heard the levitation charm? She looked over to see the snowflake dancing in front of Hope and her eyes widened in surprise. "Miss Archard. I don't believe we've covered the levitation charm yet, but I have to say I'm very impressed with that use and casting. Three extra points to Ravenclaw." Of course she'd seen Jude follow suit, but Hope had done it first.
"I think you've all done a tremendous job today in mastering these two charms, but it seems we're out of time. For homework, I'd like you to make a paper snowflake using scissors and to provide a short paragraph comparing and contrasting muggle versus magical paper snowflake creations. Which you find to be easier? More control with one compared to the other?" She explained. "You may stay and continue making snowflakes if you wish. Or levitate them as Jude and Hope have done."
ooc: Thanks for coming and for your patience with me I'll leave the thread open until tomorrow for last minute catchups / RPing leaving if you wish....
__________________
______________So much is happening to me. So much that I can't even see.
So many words of wisdom that I am trying to be. It'll be in my own time.
Rhibear ~ Madam Solo ~ Dark Brooding Girl ~ Accio Jedi ~ Gryffinclaw ~ Just a doll
Desiree took her time drawing an intricate diamond pattern on her snowflake. When she was satisfied with the way it looked, she carefully cut along the lines with a series of nonverbal Diffindo spell. She was getting rather good at doing that spell nonverbally! Maybe she’d try casting Plico nonverbally for her next snowflakes. When she’d cut out the last line, she unfolded the paper to reveal a snowflake with a series of diamond cutouts. The pattern wasn’t an exact match to the one in the Disney movie, but it was close enough.
Desiree smiled, feeling pleased with herself. Seeing Hope and Jude levitate their finished snowflakes, she started to follow suit, but before she could raise her wand, she heard Professor Sayse give Hope - and only Hope - house points for the charm. Well, so much for that idea! While Desiree was a normally noncompetitive person, she did not like being shown up in charms! Instead of hopping on the levitation bandwagon, she’d find her own way to stand out.
She was already coming up with ideas to do just that… a more complex pattern on her next snowflake - naturally, if she did an Elsa-inspired snowflake, the next one had to be Anna-inspired. What else? Both spells done nonverbally and - Ooh, what if she made it change colors? That might do! Before she could select a sheet of paper for her second snowflake, class time ran out. Darn! She really liked the ideas she had!
Oh well, she supposed she could always make an Anna-inspired snowflake for the homework assignment. Packing up her materials, she made her way to the door. “Bye, Professor,” she said on the way out. “Thanks for the lesson!”
__________________
Old voices I had thought long since dead whisper of another life I might have led If I could take that second chance, If I could make my life anew, If only dreams came true...
Charms Lesson: Folding Charm {Let's make snowflakes!} 
x5
x8
I'll leave the thread open until tomorrow for last minute catchups / RPing leaving if you wish.... 
