DIY Screaming Mandrake

When my youngest kiddo had a Harry Potter themed 11th birthday party, I knew I wanted to make mandrakes that really screamed when pulled out of their pots for Herbology Class. Our Harry Potter party was a journey to Hogwarts where the kids "attended classes" and did activities for each class.

These DIY Screaming Mandrakes are moderately easy to make and yes, actually scream when removed from their pots.

The shock on the kids' faces when they pulled the mandrakes up and they started screaming was hilarious!

DIY Screaming Mandrake

Supplies:

air dry clay

aluminum foil

fake leaves

twine

craft paint - different shades of brown and green

paint brushes

light sensor recordable sound chip

fake moss

Hot glue gun and glue

ceramic pots

Mandrake labels

Brown crinkle paper filler (as the soil)

A "mandrake" sound - I used this free mandrake screaming sound

Additional supplies - printer, scissors, Elmer's glue, computer to download onto sound chip

Instructions:

1. Using the aluminum foil, scrunch it up to make a body shape with a head, torso, arms and legs. When you're creating the arms and legs, you can add a few strands of the twine as "root hands/feet". Just scrunch it into the aluminum foil ends. These are just the base, they do not have to be perfect or even the same. I made mine slightly different as mandrakes would be slightly different.

2. Next, roll out your air dry clay into sheets almost and start layering it on your aluminum form. This takes a little bit of finesse to get them to cover and smoosh together al over the body. Be sure to leave out the arms and legs.

3. When you get to the head, you can add in some leaves to the top of his head. My kiddo decided this baby mandrake needed a booty but it ends up getting covered up later but it did give some giggles during the creation process.

4. On the front of your mandrake you can create a face out of clay. Add some expression, different mouth shapes, furrowed brows. Just play around with it. We made three mandrakes, and each one was slightly different. They all had closed eyes though, because I imagined they were sleepy baby mandrakes and didn't want to bother trying to make eyes.

5. Let your mandrakes dry fully. They you can go in with some craft paint to make them look more like a plant stump or whatever a mandrake is. We used different shades of brown and green to give it some dimension and color.

6. Once the paint is dry, you're going to hook up your sound chip to your computer and download the screaming mandrake sound on it. The chip comes with instructions. If you don't want your mandrake to actually scream when removed from his pot, skip this step, he will still be a cute decoration or party activity.

7. Using hot glue, carefully glue the sound chip to the back of your mandrake. You don't want to glue any of the sensitive parts down but do your best.

8. I used the fake moss to cover the sound chip so that you couldn't see it, but the light sensor part (that triggers the screaming) and the switch to turn it on and off were still accessible. Below you can see the front and back of them at different stages.

   

9. Print, size, cut out and glue the mandrake labels onto the front of your pots. I just used Elmer's school glue for this one.

10. Activate your mandrake and put him in the pot. Fill in the areas with the crinkle filler paper as "dirt".

11. We had other bigger pots to "move" the mandrake too with a burlap bag filled with extra "dirt" so that they could re-pot the mandrakes into bigger pots.

Here's how it goes. The baby mandrakes are all cozy in their little pots. The kids pull them out, which triggers the light sensor and they start screaming, laughter ensues. The kids then have to rush to repot them into the bigger pots and fill the areas around them with the "dirt" to trigger the sensor to stop the mandrake crying sound. We had the kids work in pairs. It was so hilarious!

If you wanted to go an extra step you could have fluffy ear muffs for the kids to put on during the herbology class like they do in the movie.

Check back later for future links on how we created all our classes!

Care of Magical Creatures

Muggle Studies

Potions Class

Herbology

History of Magic

Ancient Runes

For more Harry Potter fun, check out our Butterbeer Cookies, DIY wand holder, Butterbeer Milkshakes, and Madeye Moody Meatballs and Gillyweed Pasta posts!