Investigation in Diagon Alley – a Harry Potter-inspired board game

Mallory, a French teacher who creates and shares pedagogical material on her blog, created a mathematical board game on the theme of Harry Potter. This game contained different enigmas and a quiz about the first book of the series. The game was created and implemented in a primary school classroom that followed a yearly theme. During the year in question, the classroom theme was Harry Potter. The students were already familiar with the universe of the series as they had been reading the first book together, which increased their engagement and enthusiasm for the game.

This game uses the same mechanics as the game “The Mysteries of Peking”. A robbery has been committed at Gringotts Bank, and, as Aurors (magical police officers in the Harry Potter universe), the pupils must identify the culprit from a list of suspects. To do this, they have to visit the different shops of Diagon Alley and solve 10 mathematical riddles. All correctly answered riddles provide clues on how to recognise the culprit.