GRYFFINDOR HOUSE QUIDDITCH TRY-OUTS For our daughter's 7th birthday party, she and my husband (both Harry Potter fans) came up with the idea of holding quidditch try-outs.
Invitations were sent via "owl post."
First, we printed the invitations onto creme-colored paper, rolled tightly into small scrolls. Then, my husband printed colorful owls from an origami site found online and we hand-folded each one. We made legs and talons for each owl using 6 twist ties and then taped the legs to the underside of each owl. The curved claws of each owl's "feet" clutched a scroll and enabled the owl to stand up. The invitation read: "Special Edition of The Daily Prophet" and announced that Gryffindor House was holding early try-outs for the Quidditch Team to celebrate Erin's 7th birthday. My daughter and I hand-delivered each owl to our guests' mailboxes. (We received many compliments on the owls and one child was so excited she RSVP'd with her own owl!) When the guests arrived for the party, a yellow sign posted above our front door announced that they were at "King's Cross Station." In the foyer, we had created a brick wall made of 2 burgandy twin bedsheets hung on picture wire between two posts. The "bricks" were outlined on the sheets with masking tape. On the left side of the "brick wall" was a sign pointing to the left for Platform 9; on the right side was a sign pointing to the right for Platform 10. When my husband opened the door, guests had to run through the "wall" in order to reach Platform 9 3/4 and board the Hogwart's Express. Before they did so, my husband told them the secret password ("cockroach clusters") to enter the Gryffindor common room. I had drawn a life-size picture of the Fat Lady which we taped to the front of a glass door leading to our playroom. I stood behind the door and kids could see my face through a cut-out hole in the picture. When the kids came to the door, I would say "Password" and the kids would say "cockroach clusters" before I would open the door. Once inside the Gryffindor common room, each guest received a Gryffindor House badge (downloaded from the internet) and a real broomstick (a recent Halloween decoration from Michael's craft store that looked just like the broomsticks in the movies). There were a variety of Harry Potter and other stickers to decorate and label their brooms. I had filled a small strawberry jar with 210 jelly beans and labeled it "Bertie Botts Every Flavor Beans." Kids wrote their guesses as to the number of beans in the jar and placed them in a small box my daughter had decorated. We also had two crossword puzzles (found on the internet) and a quidditch word search made up by our daughter for the kids to work on. After the brooms were finished, we led them upstairs to the "Room of Requirement" to watch the quidditch lesson and match scenes from the first Harry Potter movie, in order to familiarize those kids who had not read the books. We then took them to the quidditch field for practice. The field was our 2 garages which are shaped like an L. As in the movie, we had all the quidditch balls placed in a brown trunk (my daughter's dress-up trunk wrapped in brown paper and decorated with a Hogwart's shield colored by my daughter). For balls we used soft pit balls. We then divided the 14 kids into 2 teams and had each kid practice in turn with their broomsticks the different positions (beater, chaser, keeper, and seeker). We had taped 3 hula hoops as goal posts to the wall of each garage and the kids loved throwing the balls right at the wall!! After practice, we played a sorting game to divide our 14 guests into two teams. We put a label marked either "black" or "white" on the back of each guest. Without talking, the guests had to figure out his color and which team he/she was on. The kids were quicker than we thought they would be at discovering their color! We then gave each guest a black or white "cape" (made from trashbags and secured around their neck with tape) to wear for the quidditch game. The golden snitch was a soft yellow star that my husband hid. After one of the seekers found the snitch, my husband threw the snitch high into the air and the seekers took turns trying to catch it. We let my daughter be one of the seekers and she was extremely thrilled when she caught the snitch. We had hoped to play more than 1 game but because of time constraints, we let the kids fly around on their broomsticks for a little bit while we set up the next activity. We then had a Tri-Wizard Challenge wherein the kids had to fly on their broomsticks and steal dragon eggs from the blue dragon. My husband played the dragon wearing a long blue jumper and a dragon mask made by two of my daughters. The dragon eggs were easter eggs wrapped in silver foil and stuffed with gummy dinosaur candies. The "golden egg" was a large unwrapped gold colored easter egg which contained extra gummy candies. The kids really got into the game and even started "beating" the dragon with their broomsticks! After unwrapping their eggs, the kids went inside for dinner (pizza, fruit, and crackers). We had decorated the eating area in Gryffindor colors with red and gold streamers, a Harry Potter birthday banner, a Harry Potter legos set, and all our Harry Potter books. While we cleared plates, kids played Harry Potter wizard chess and with the legos set. We then had cake (an amazing Harry Potter cake from Publix) and ice cream. As the kids ate, I announced the winner of the Bertie Botts guessing game and awarded the jar as the prize. By then most parents had arrived and the party was over. We had planned one more game (a Bertie Botts jelly bean naming contest where each guest would be given the same colored jelly bean and everyone would come up with silly names for it) but ran out of time. The party lasted almost 3 hours but it felt like 30 minutes! Although there was alot of prep work, my daughters had fun helping out with all the arts & crafts. The kids seemed to have a blast and even the adults who stayed told us they had a great time.
