Harry Potter Party 6yr old We have just held a fantastically magical Harry Potter party for our 6 year old son. It took a lot of planning, but it was well worth it! We began by sending out invitations which read exactly like Harry's letter from Hogwarts.  I downloaded a Hogwarts crest from the net and addressed each letter 'Dear Mr/Miss.....' I coffee stained the paper to make it look old and sealed the stained envelopes with wax and an 'H' stamp. We asked them to dress in suitable wizard/witch attire and bring a wand.I asked the parents to put the invitation on the child's bed and hint that they thought they may have heard an owl delivering it. The children were so excited to receive these and lots of them were convinced they were going to the real Hogwarts - some brothers and sisters were disappointed that they weren't witches or wizards themselves! The fact that his Birthday falls in October was brilliant as there were a lot of Halloween decorations available to deck the house out with.  I hung spiders and bats everywhere and I made snitches to hang from the ceiling with polystyrene balls which I painted yellow and glued yellow feathers to. I made a brick wall by sponging brown paint in rectangular shapes onto two large unflolded boxes.  We then nailed these either side of our door and labelled each side 9 and 10 (for the platforms at Kings Cross)  The children were then able to run through the flaps to reach our hallway which was labelled 'Platform 9 3/4.  On arrival the children were greeted by my fabulous friends who had all gone to tremendous effort to dress up as the characters from the book! I was Professor McGonagall and we had Hagrid, Professor Flitwick (my husband who looked brilliant with pointy ears and a bald head (from the joke shop) to which he glued cotton wool around the edge for hair, Professor Sprout, Professor Snape and Madam Hooch. When the children arrived and made their way through to platform 9 3/4 they had to guess how many 'Bertie Botts' Every Flavour Beans' were in a jar and they had to pick squares on a Marauders Map to find the hidden treasure. Then the party was ready to begin.I did a short introduction before the Sorting Hat ceremony.  For this I had bought a sorting hat and we used a baby monitor to make the voice.  My husband made up a poem and when each child sat in the chair and put the hat on he had some positive comments to make for each before sorting them into houses. I had made house badges by downloading images from the net and sticking them onto cardboard. I then sellotaped a safety pin to the back.  Each child was given their badge as they were sorted. Once they were all sorted we explained that they would gain housepoints for good behaviour and teamwork, but that they might loose points for bad bahaviour or bad manners when eating (such as burping!!!) I made a little booklet for each child which contained word searches and team badges for them to colour in. Each group then worked around 4 20 minute lessons in turn. Quidditch: I had little brooms for them. Madam Hooch taught them the correct way to mount the broom and got them to practise relay races where they hopped to a large piece of bubble wrap and jumped on it until the whistle was blown then hopped back to hand the broom to the next person. The team who popped the most bubbles was the winner. Then one of the snitches was hidden in the room and the children played hunt the snitch. Potions: We boiled a red cabbage the night before and stored the juice from it. When you add small amounts of washing powder, lemon juice, bicarbonate of soda, white vinegar and milk to the juice it changes into fabulous colours. We put the various 'ingredients' into plain jars and labelled them - phoenix blood(red cabbage) unicorn blood(milk) Crushed dragon's teeth (washing powder) powdered spiders' eggs (bicarb) Juice from the eye of a basilisk(lemon) and snake venom(white vinegar).  I made up potions that would be created by mixing each ingredient with the phoenix blood (eg: Itching potion...)  The children mixed the ingredients and recorded the colour changes in their booklets. Charms and Spells: Professor Flitwick ran through a few spells with the children (eg expelliarmus..) I had set up a treasure hunt around the house which also had a story linked to it.  The children had to find the Philosophers Stone before Prof Quirrell but there were obstacles in the way which required the children to use some of the spells.  For example Neville didn't want them to break school rules so they had to put him in the full body bind, a door was locked so they needed to use the alohamora spell (you can find a list of spells on the net) The treasure Hunt itself was pictures of the next location that they needed to go to (eg the sofa, the bathroom...) The children loved this as it really felt like they were using their wands to perform spells!  They looked so cute! Herbology: The children had a list of magical plants in their booklets and they could choose one of those or make one up of their own.  They had to plant a few seeds (pumpkin or sunflower), choose a name for their plant and decorate their pot with foam shapes and stickers Finally before tea they had a Quidditch Tournament and the winning team won the Cup (for this I had cut out cup shapes from silver card and labelled them 'Quidditch Cup 2004' For party bags they had little cauldrons and I made each child a salt dough Harry or Hermione.  I had bursting bug sweets and a wand that had a surprise flavour in each one (found on a party website) a plastic spider and of course they had their plant their booklets and their badges. My son had a Hogwarts cake which was fantastic and whilst they ate the party food we announced the winner of the 'Bertie Botts' Beans' and the Marauders Map treasure was a chocolate frog.The team with the most points for good behaviour also received a siver cup. I think this was the best party ever and all the parents have been so complimentary about it. The atmosphere was fantastic.  I just don't know how we can possibly top it next year!!!!