This Harry Potter Marauder’s Map activity is a fun way for your child to identify safe people/places in their environment and learn how to navigate to them when needed.
In Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban (the third book of the series), Harry is not permitted to explore the nearby town of Hogsmeade with the rest of the students because he could not get his permission slip signed by his ruthless, degrading guardians, his Aunt Petunia and Uncle Vernon.
So, twins George and Fred Weasley (proud jokesters, friends, and fellow Hogwarts students) gifted Harry the Marauder’s Map, so he could also visit the quaint magical town. The Marauder’s Map is a magical document that reveals every classroom, hallway, secret passage, and every single person on the grounds of Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry. That’s right, it even shows people.
This enchanted map showed people moving about the castle represented by a little dot with their name hovering over it. As the dots moved around (as the people did), the user could know where someone was and also know parts of the castle they could visit or hide in, if necessary, which is excellent for creating mischief!
We are going to make our own maps. Maps that show places in our homes, schools, and environments as well as people. But instead of keeping us out of (or mixed in) trouble, our maps will show us places and people of safety.
So grab a pen, and a copy of the printable, and let’s get drawing! Also, a paper free approach is below to help with playfulness, movement, and connection!
How to set up the Harry Potter Marauder’s Map activity
This activity is super easy and low maintenance! All you need are the supplies below! Let’s get started!
Supplies:
- Marauders Map Printable (get it below!)
- Pens, pencils, or markers of different colors
- Paints and Q-Tips (optional)
Instructions:
1. First, start a heart-felt, eye-to-eye, no-distraction conversation with your kiddo about what it means to feel safe and, more deeply, what it means to feel safe being oneself.
Then, with the child, explore places and people they feel safe to be themselves around. It is important to find at least one place and at least one person, this may feel hard for some kiddos, while others will want to list several.
If the child is struggling to think of a person they feel safe to be around, which could be adults or peers, try suggesting they think back to a time when they felt they were in trouble or when they felt scared. Then you could ask them guiding questions like if someone helped them and how they helped them. You could ask them where they were when this happened what feelings they were having and if they themselves did anything to change the feelings.
The safe person could even be a pet, a stuffie, an invisible friend, or even themselves! The point is to help them establish a safe place and person they can anchor into. They can always add to it later on!
This is a great way to build connection, and trust and find out where and with whom they feel safe. The best learning happens with connection first!
2. Next explain to the child that you are going to make a map showing people and places they feel safe with and can be their whole selves around.
3. Pull out the printable and invite them to begin drawing the place they feel safest or most able to be themselves. Make it fun and add details. Is there a desk in the corner? Draw it! Do you remember the old-school Clue gameboards? They had lamps and pictures on the walls and all kinds of things. Wasn’t it fun to take your game piece and pretend in there?
This could even be a great lesson in 3D drawing and geometry.
4. Next, the child can either use a pen or pencil or they can make dots of paint using a Q-Tip, to place their safe people on the map. Then they can write the names above them.
5. Finish it off by discussing different ways the child can find safety when/if needed. See the hide-and-seek expansion idea below for dialog prompts.
Ways to Expand or Adjust to Include Movement:
Suppose your child doesn’t like to do worksheets or printables. Or perhaps you would like to extend this activity to include even more fun! In that case, you can do this activity while moving your body and getting silly! This can work with you and a single child or child-to-child.
- Is the printable too small? Or maybe the child just does not like printables. That’s OK! Take out some craft paper and enlarge the space the kiddo wants to draw! Then pull out some figurines they can use as their safe people. How fun!
- You could also use this opportunity to role-play/pretend play! Kids almost always love pretend play! Invite the child to share a moment when they felt out of place or awkward or even scared. Invite them to share as many details as possible, if they feel comfortable doing so of course. Then, with their permission, try to recreate the situation and then prompt and guide the child to find a newer way the situation could happen if it shows up again. A person they can confide in, a place they can go to, a tool they can use to feel permission to be themselves.
- This is also a great opportunity to play hide-and-seek! Take turns hiding and being the seeker. Only this hide-and-seek, when you find the hider, they share a statement or affirmation of when or how they feel safe. For example, “Oh! You found me! I feel safe when I am listened to” or “I feel safe when my feelings are validated” or “I feel safe when our jokes are not about me”. You can make sure to include self-affirming statements like “I feel like my real self when I sing” or “I feel like my real self when I can say what’s on my mind without getting in trouble. This gives a great opportunity for the child(ren) to declare what they need to feel safe as well as in which ways they feel authentic, all while integrating into a fun, playful, classic game.
- Expand it! You and the child could also use the back of the map (or a second copy) to list/draw tools the child can use (or even better, has used) to find safety and feel safe. Tools that helped them feel safe to be themselves would also be great to include!
If your kiddos are enjoying learning about themselves while exploring the magical world of witchcraft & wizardry, and they want more, you can grab all 8 of our Harry Potter mindfulness printables for just $1.29!
(If you just want the free file, feel free to go to the individual posts to grab to grab them. It will ask you to enter in your information for each activity printable, but don’t worry, I won’t send you duplicate emails.)
Social Emotional Learning Behind the Harry Potter Marauder’s Map Activity
This activity helps with the following social-emotional aspects:
- Self-care
- Feeling Emotions to Completion – Safety in feelings
- Importance of being authentic
Discussing what places and which people they can be themselves with and find safety in is paramount and foundational in helping a child work through a problem as well as protecting oneself and living a happy life. It is hard to be happy if you are always feeling like you need to pretend to be someone else.
Caring for, or staying connected to oneself when things are hard can also feel scary and unattainable. That is why practicing or learning a safe place or person to go to when it’s hard can be helpful.
Safe people and places can be reminders of how wonderful we are and also how to move forward, but, more importantly, they can also be safe havens for feeling our feelings to completion.
Here’s the thing, if we do not let an emotion complete its cycle and be fully felt, acknowledged, and integrated, it can store itself deep inside and come out the next time a similar trigger happens. Then, when the future trigger happens, it has more “fuel” so to speak.
Stored, or encapsulated emotions can also cause discomfort or worse in so many other ways. From manifesting as headaches to ulcers to pain/stiffness in muscles and joints to so much more! Dealing with emotions in their entirety is very important for so many reasons!
When we can express our emotions authentically and in their entirety, we learn and come to know that emotions and having emotions are safe and they will pass. That is a big deal. It is hard to know for sure they will pass if we never get to see the other side of the emotion.
Also, if we are always ignoring them or trying to soften emotions, it sends the message that they shouldn’t or even can’t be dealt with. This can give the impression of them being scary or too hard. Which can turn into running from them habitually.
This article from parentfamilywellness.com explains how an emotion typically lasts 90 seconds and then after that it is more like a story we are choosing to stay in. This can be intentional or not, and, depending on our inner dialogue can either be helpful or more troublesome.
This is exactly why it is so important to know who to find or where to go if we need to recalibrate ourselves and feel the full spectrum of our feelings without judgment, and shame, and instead with safety and support. Which is why this activity focuses on exactly that. Safe people. Safe places. Safe tools.
That’s exactly why I created this activity. To give children a fun, engaging, and lasting way to use a tool for identifying and finding safety, so they can know where to go and who to lean on when they need a little extra support. Empowering your kids to know what safety feels like and how to find it when they need it is a gift they will use their entire lives.
Check out these other Harry Potter Social Emotional Learning Activities:
- Harry Potter Remembrall Activity – Positive Mindset
- Harry Potter Sorting Hat Activity – Character Building / Self Acceptance
- Harry Potter House Crest Activity – Self Affirmation
- Harry Potter Transfiguration Activity – Flexible Thinking & Growth Mindset
- Harry Potter Boggart Activity – Facing Fear & Defeating Worry
- Harry Potter Mirror of Erised Activity – Achieving Goals / Tenacity
- Harry Potter Defeat Voldemort Activity – Confidence / Defeating Fear